


Starting it over

by Firebog



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, Alien Culture, Cultural Differences, Family Bonding, Grief/Mourning, Post-Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Ravager Culture, Team Bonding, Team as Family, but for aliens
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2019-11-03 17:39:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17882255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Firebog/pseuds/Firebog
Summary: The messy process of bonding as a family and processing grief when you're criminals but also the good guys for once.(a post vol 1 fic that's only...five years late)





	1. Nobody knows his name

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from The Guess Who's Nobody Knows His Name because I love irony (and just kind of like The Guess Who in general).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been a really long day.

Things are...things happen. After. He doesn't want to say _it's_ _hectic._ He's lived and worked with Ravagers for most of his life. They don't have a fleet of M-ships because they only take quiet one-man infiltration jobs. He knows his way around smoking rubble and civilian casualties.

The smoking rubble on Xandar could be swapped out for any of a few dozen ruined cities he's fought in or skulked through for a job. It usually leads to either shooting his way out when the law shows up or leisurely rifling through the pockets of the dead.

This time the Nova Corps shows up and he doesn't run. He helps them pick through the rubble for the injured. He tosses beacons on the dead so they can be dealt with later. He subdues a few of Ronan's goons that made it through the crash and actually _turns them over_ _**alive** _to be carted off to prison.

(there's a surreal moment where he sees Gamora – deadly daughter of Thanos – help an old lady into one of the medical transports. The image burns itself into his brain: Gamora pulling an access ramp down, covered in dirt and grime, spitting her hair out of her mouth, and dressed in his clan's colours)

So, stuff happens. But it's not the roughshod extraction/looting he's grown up with. It's orderly. These professionals are in clean cut matching uniforms designed for mass production. They don't take chances. They don't take risks. They call for back up in places he would have run into blasters out.

When the camera drones start to show up someone decides that now ought to be the time to whisk the newly minted Guardians of the Galaxy out of sight.

Peter's still running high on adrenalin, he wants to argue with the nameless corpsman who tries to usher him onto a transport but Gamora looks ready to _run_ , Rocket is threatening to bite people when he isn't choking back sobs, and Drax's hands keep drifting to his knives when people ask him if he's injured.

They're done. He's done.

He breathes deep and the last of that jittery raw energy drains out of him. He lets the medics bandage up the worst of his cuts and burns. He gets on the transport with the others and tries not to think too hard about how he doesn't know where they're taking him. Prison? A hospital? The nearest spaceport for a speedy deportation?

He ignores the safety warnings to strap in while the vehicle is in motion— he just rode a Kree warship to the ground. He can handle a few sharp turns.

Holy crap.

_He rode a Kree warship to the ground!_

How did he not end up on the wrong end of physics? He should be a red smear on the ground.

Rocket curls in on himself to muffle another sob.

Groot. Groot is why he isn't a red smear on the ground.

His vision goes blurry. He blinks the tears from his eyes.

(in the split seconds of darkness behind his eyelids his vision is dotted with little glowing spores and newborn stars. The tight confines of the transport turn into glorious sweeping heights; a nebula cradled by branches. A gravelly _We are Groot_ and a longing _take my hand_ whispers in his ear)

He closes his eyes and lets his head thump back against the side of the transport. The vibration of the engine thrums against the earpiece of his mask. It sets off a wicked headache, one more fuck you from life. He peels the earpiece off and stuffs it in a pocket.

"Do you think—" Gamora stops as soon as she starts.

Peter slowly opens his eyes. "What?"

Gamora doesn't fidget. Not exactly. The movements are so barely there that he isn't even sure if he saw them but that nervous _what happens next?_ vibe radiates off her. It's probably the most unnerving thing he's ever seen. He's only known Gamora for a handful of days but there is something just so _wrong_ about seeing her nervous.

Her eyes narrow and focus. It makes the burns on her cheeks crinkle and crack. She takes her time, thinking. She settles on, "...do you think we will have to break out of prison again?"

He laughs a little, breathy and quiet. "No idea."

"Suuirtg tnry guueiijyt," Drax says. Which, _what?_

Gamora looks over at Drax as if he didn't just start speaking in tongues. "Of course."

Drax nods and leans back. "Fiintc waaoiikrs jsouurfg."

It's like his translator just up and died. He slaps a hand to the back of his neck. He hisses and jerks his hand away. It comes back bloody.

"Peter?" Gamora's eyes flick between his bloody hand and...whatever expression his face is making right now. It must be pretty bug-eyed because she gets up and takes his hand. "This is fresh. You're bleeding. Where?"

He makes an abortive reach for his neck. Gamora tilts him forward to look. She doesn't make a sound.

"Do I have...I dunno, a chunk of warship stuck in the back of my neck?" Peter asks when the silence continues for _way_ to long. _This_ is definitely the new most unnerving thing he's ever seen. Or not seen in this case. Still. _Unnerving._ Really, really unnerving.

"There's a cut." Gamora doesn't elaborate. "Can you feel this?"

"I'm gonna go with no." He can't even tell if she's touching him at all.

(distantly he can appreciate the irony. Unnerving. Right. He's probably going to spend a month under arrest in a Nova hospital for nerve damage at this rate)

Rocket slides off his seat. "Swee'i litsa doah uy?"

He has no idea what Rocket is saying but he can guess. "Uh, I think my translator fritzed out." Peter _hopes_ his translator is on the fritz. Otherwise he's having a really weird stroke where he can only understand hot assassin ladies. Which even he will admit is not as good as it sounds.

Rocket clears his throat as he hops up on the seat beside Peter. "I'm tak'a shoot in the nought that you unbbersan Eneeseks?"

It takes him a minute to understand what Rocket is saying; having to work out if he's getting a garbled translation or if Rocket just doesn't know much Nova Standard Xandarian.

"Uh, yeah. NSX. Stavan system Xandarian too if it's easier for you...?" He tries to think back on all his conversations with Rocket, where he had to dance around an explanation when their translators couldn't match up.

"Or lower or formal Kree?" He isn't exactly fluent in either. He knows how to get along in lower Kree, enough so that he can pick up chicks and chick appearing individuals in Kree spacer bars or yell insults across a battlefield. And he can talk himself out of being arrested in formal Kree. Most of the time. The dumb tourist that just wants a photo act only goes so far when you're caught red-handed.

"Lower Kree," Rocket says as he pushes Peter's head down and presumably pokes at the back of Peter's numb neck. "Yeah, your trabslator's innerface got a durest hit."

There's a really unsettling tug inside Peter's neck that feels like someone is trying to pick his nose through the back of his head then blood starts to leak down his back.

Gamora presses one hand down on his neck while the other tears open a first aid kit mounted on the wall.

Rocket holds out a bloody disk trailing a mess of wires. "It's done fourth." He wipes his bloody hands on Peter's jacket. "Should bur able to get you per-so-nan-nal settings from it."

Peter stares down at the translator implant. His stomach heaves. He just rode a Kree warship to the ground, held an infinity stone, was visited by the ghost of his mom, and now he's getting impromptu brain surgery in the back of a transport from a guy who's probably a raccoon.

It's been a really long day.

"Kvaaoiiwllb, Pee-tor Kill. Boiisd aduuiietp," Drax adds.

Rocket snorts. "Pikli'sli u'yels."

Peter does his best to angle his head up at Gamora without causing anymore damage to the gaping hole in his neck. "They're making fun of me, aren't they?"

"No." Gamora is a terrible liar for someone who's supposed to be an expert at infiltration. She flicks the cap off a can of foam instant-bandage with one hand. "Hold still."

Peter doesn't argue. He's got a hole in the back of his neck that goes straight to his brain.

He spends the rest of the ride willing himself to understand whatever jokes Rocket and Drax are telling at his expense and quietly freaking out that he might have done some permanent damage to his brain this time. Yondu would probably think it's hilarious.

At least they end up at a hospital and not in prison.

He's assessed before he gets out of the vehicle. Which is mostly a nurse in a lab coat making him look up and down then tapping furiously into a datapad when they see the hole in his neck. He's given the datapad which is rapidly blinking bright orange (not a good thing, as far as he remembers when it comes to Nova hospitals) and sent to the triage doctor. The others tag along because apparently that's what they do now.

The triage doctor looks professionally unconcerned but says _something_ in that voice doctor's use when they need an answer that very minute or something bad will happen.

Peter shrugs. He gets the tone. It's serious, whatever it is, but the doctor might as well be speaking gibberish. There were never any Aakons on the Eclector. He's never had a reason to learn it. He's always relied on his translator for Aakon languages.

"No idea what you're saying, dude." Peter taps his head. "Translator's gone."

The doctor turns and looks at the others. He decides Gamora is in charge. Probably a good thing. Who knows what Drax would let them do. Dude, can't be trusted alone for five minutes.

Gamora and the doctor talk back and forth. Peter listens to the half he understands.

"In the transport. As far as I know...it's numb. Rocket took it out."

At that, Peter digs into his pocket. He holds out the busted translator. The doctor goes all puffy the way Aakons do when they're freaking out.

Peter looks at the translator. It's covered in blood and grime. He grimaces. "Yeah. It's a little gory but I swear it was sterile when I got it put in."

The doctor takes a moment to process the whole _brain surgery in a moving vehicle by some one who is definitely not a professional_ thing. He very slowly closes his eyes – the Aakon equivalent of taking deep breaths – and asks Gamora something else.

"Oh. No. I don't believe so. He's Terran."

"What's he saying?" Peter really hates not understanding what's going on. It's like being a kid on the Eclector all over again.

"He wants to know if you have mixed heritage," Gamora explains. She waves up and down his body. "Since you look Xandarian but bleed red."

Now this Peter knows. Yondu taught him early to be extra vocal about his health since he's so easily mistaken for something he's not.

"No. Just Terran. Hemoglobin. Systemic heart." He points to his chest. "Uh, just one. Heart, I mean. And I have a wicked urushiol allergy. No miesberry. I get all rashy when I _touch_ it. It's pretty much the worst thing ever if I eat it. You'll probably find theobromine in my blood work. It's fine. _That_ , I can eat. No one poisoned me."

The doctor types the information into the datapad. He gets twitchy about the whole theobromine thing, like every one does. But come on, _chocolate is great!_ That's the universe's problem if it doesn't know a good thing when it sees it.

The doctor asks Gamora something else. Gamora shrugs.

"Do you have someone you want them to call?"

Peter blinks. Normally the answer would be Yondu. That's obviously not an option. He's not a Ravager anymore. Well. _Technically_ , he still is. As far as he knows Yondu hasn't officially tossed him out or put a kill bounty on him. But he's not _with_ the Ravagers anymore which amounts to the same thing: he's got no one to call.

His eyes trail over Gamora to Drax to Rocket. He shrugs and spreads his hands. "Looks like ya'll're here."

The doctor gets even puffier and asks Gamora another handful of questions. Gamora doesn't hesitate to answer this time.

"No, that's just how he talks."

He isn't really sure he likes the implications of that. He talks perfectly fine, thank you very much. He's practically formal compared to most Ravagers.

The doctor doesn't look like he believes Gamora but he doesn't ask anymore questions. He pushes a button and a few moments later they get hustled through a set of doors.

The nurse that escorts them to wherever it is they're going reads over the datapad. They don't seem too concerned that Gamora is answering everything for him or that Drax is scowling at everyone who walks past them. They get to a set of big doors. The nurse stops and points to a sign.

At least the hospital signs are all in Xandarian. This one is easy: _No Visitors Beyond This Point._

Rocket says _something._ The nurse looks petrified. Drax nods sagely. Gamora shrugs.

That's how he ends up getting a second round of brain surgery with an exhausted group of galaxy savers as an audience.

He can't honestly say it's weird having major surgery with some casual gawking from co-workers. Ravagers live on top of each other and have zero clue about stuff like doctor-patient confidentiality and individual privacy. Medical emergencies are public entertainment and crew bonding experiences.

It's comforting in an odd sort of way.

They're stashed in a ward room that was obviously cleared out like, ten minutes before they got there if the rumpled sheets are anything to go by. Gamora and Drax make themselves comfortable looming in the corners while Rocket gives a running commentary about what the surgeon is doing. It's almost like being back on the Eclector. Which is not something he ever thought he'd miss.

And he doesn't.

Not at all.

...maybe a little.

Jeez, it hasn't even been a whole month since he left for good! He can't be getting sentimental over— he can practically hear Yondu laughing at him from space, _sentiment? Thought I taught you better, boy._

He tries not to think about the Eclector and the crew and the funerals they must be getting ready. He tries to stay focused on Rocket's commentary. On the here and now.

It doesn't take as long as he'd thought it would to repair whatever damage was done and insert a new translator. It takes longer to argue with the doctor about wireless updates.

(no thank you. He's seen what happens when you let people remotely access _your_ _**brain** )_

The doctor tries to load up his personal settings from his busted translator but Rocket waves him off.

He doesn't know what it says about him that he actually prefers that Rocket does it. All he really knows about Rocket is that he's broken out of a ton of prisons and thinks it's funny to steal people's prosthetics and mods.

Rocket grabs the datapad and plugs it into the port and all Peter can feel is relief.

"Uy t'uw'sli." Rocket taps at the datapad the surgeon gave him. "Koh'i uy online first. It'll take a minute for your custom settings."

"Oh, whoa." Peter scrunches his eyes up. Watching people's mouths when they talk always makes his head ache. The words and the lips don't match up when his brain insists they should. Yondu had always told him it was a common side-effect of getting a translator later in life. That there was nothing for it so he'd better suck it up and get over it.

All these years later and he still hasn't gotten over it.

"Can he understand us talking about his inadequacies now?" Drax asks, looking supremely sympathetic. To Rocket.

"Yeah. I can." Peter flinches when Rocket unplugs the datapad from the new translator.

The surgeon moves in to slather his neck in a temporary foam bandage. "We'll need to run through the auditory calibration and vocabulary checks before I close up the incision. Unless you've changed your mind about wireless..?"

"Nope."

The surgeon sighs. And definitely mutters some completely unprofessional opinions about technophobes.

(which he is _not._ It's just common sense when you're a professional criminal. You have a better understanding about how network security is more of a fantasy than a reality you want to stake your life on)

"I'll schedule an appointment for the calibration," the surgeon says.

"Yeah. Sure." Peter sits up and tries not to pick at the gross medical foam caked in his hair. "Calibration. Gotta make sure it works."

The surgeon gives him a look that probably gets patients to follow orders but whatever, dude, he just rode a Kree warship to the ground and held an infinity stone. He'll get Rocket to stitch him back up later. Standard translators are almost always fine right out of the box anyway. And it's not like they can run any kind of tests for his personal settings.

Gamora promises that they will definitely show up for the appointment and do the calibration.

There is no way he's waiting around for that. He's got all sorts of hang ups around hospitals as it is. Waiting around in one to find out if they're going to be arrested isn't his idea of a good time. He needs to get out. They need to get out. And find somewhere to hole up for a while. Maybe drink until his head starts hurting from something fun instead. They need to have a proper funeral for Groot, right?

The surgeon leaves with another couple _do as I say_ looks. Peter almost feels bad that he's definitely never doing what he says. The surgeon looks like he's really put a lot of effort into those looks. It's a shame that they don't work on him.

"So, are we waiting to see if we're heroes?" Rocket asks as soon as the surgeon is out the door. He opens the nearest cabinet and casually starts to pilfer anything within reach. "Or are we stealing a ship and making a getaway?"

"We did save the planet," Gamora says. There's a hopeful note to her voice.

"After we broke out of prison." Rocket stuffs a handful of packets covered in warning labels into his vest. "Technically we're still criminals."

"Perhaps, then, you should stop stealing from the hospital." Gamora makes a move to snatch the next packet from Rocket's hand but he darts out of her reach.

"If they didn't want people to steal it, then why'd they leave it in a cupboard?" Rocket says like it makes complete sense. He starts rooting around in another cupboard as far from Gamora as possible. "I'm just saying, maybe—"

Rocket and Gamora both turn to look at the door. A second later the door opens and some old lady from Nova Corp comes in. She takes a moment to look at each of them. Peter has the distinct feeling of being carefully scrutinized. Whatever she sees, she doesn't let it show. The old lady has a good game face.

"On behalf of the people of Xandar and the Nova Empire, thank you," the old lady says. "You risked your lives when you could have saved yourselves. You showed true bravery in the face of terrible danger."

"Yep, we're all about saving innocent lives." Peter whips out his very best con-job smile. "You could say we're heroes. Galaxy saving heroes. Guardians of the Galaxy even. Who probably deserve pardons. Who do we talk to about that?"

"But Quill, you said that you only wanted to save the galaxy for your own selfish reasons," Drax very helpfully says. He points to his chest with one of his knives. "And I was seeking revenge for the death of my family."

There's a long drawn out moment where everyone collectively wonders _what are you doing?_ Drax is blissfully unaware of it or just doesn't care. Peter isn't sure which.

Gamora breaks the silence. "Thank you, Nova Prime."

Nova Prime?

He fights the urge to smack at the back of his neck. Maybe it really is a good idea to get the translator calibrated. It's messing up languages he knows.

"I've posted several corpsmen to this floor and more patrol the hospital grounds," says the lady who might be in charge of the whole Nova Corps. She catches a look between Rocket and Gamora. "Not to keep you here, though I highly recommend you don't leave. They're here to keep the media out while you recover."

"The media." Gamora makes it sound like some assholes with cameras are worse than a warship full of Kree. "They'll want to know. About us."

Ah, okay. Now he gets it. Gamora didn't have the best reputation in prison. It's probably not much better out of it.

"We've been flooded with interview requests." Nova Prime— he really can not get over how small Nova Prime is in real life if this is actually Nova Prime. He'd thought she'd be seven feet tall and super beefy.

Gamora's lips peel back into something akin to a snarl. The burns on her cheeks don't crack this time.

"I ain't talking to no one," Rocket pipes up. He stuffs another stolen packet into his vest as if Nova Prime isn't right in front of him. "And I'm not real interested in being _recommended_ to not leave by a bunch of corpsmen."

Drax doesn't say anything. He doesn't need to. His whole glower with knives thing he has going on is enough to communicate how he feels about being told to stay put under guard.

"Yeah, I gotta agree with Rocket," Peter says in his _ordering the hostages around_ voice. It usually gets him what he wants when blasting his way out isn't an option. If it works on Nova Prime he's totally going to send Kraglin a bunch of dumb messages about how he should have been lead negotiator more often.

He hops off the bed and does his best leader of the team swagger. Rocket snorts and shoots a look at Drax. Drax brays out a laugh.

Before he can say a defensive _what?_ Gamora steps forward.

(he has another _moment._ One where he half expects her to start listing their demands; threatening to send out the whole M-ship fleet if they aren't met. She's still covered in dirt and blood but damned if she doesn't pull off the reds)

"We appreciate the offer." Gamora says offer like it's a dirty word. "But I think we would be more comfortable somewhere else." Gamora shifts her stance. It's the barest minuscule muscle movements. It turns her from suspicious survivor to menacing killer.

God, she is so beautiful when she takes charge.

"Somewhere less public." Gamora waves her arm towards the windows.

Peter turns his head. There's camera drones buzzing around outside. In theory the windows have built in privacy screens but he's hacked enough of them to know they're only private as long as no one really wants to see inside.

"And less corpsmen," Rocket adds.

"And less hospital." Peter isn't interested in getting moved to a military hospital instead. Good luck breaking out of one of those, Rocket.

"And less offensive to one's eyes," Drax says, because of course he does. He motions to the light tan coloured walls and wrinkles his nose and gags.

Peter gets the feeling that absolutely none of Drax is an act. The dude just freewheels through life saying exactly what he's thinking.

Nova Prime takes a moment to stare at Drax, probably coming to the same conclusion as Peter. She looks back to Gamora then considers Rocket and Peter. She takes out a tiny datapad and taps it a few times.

"We have several apartments for visiting foreign dignitaries." Nova Prime considers her datapad. She taps it again then puts it away. "There is considerably more privacy and the security presence is less intrusive."

Rocket makes a snorting noise that sounds an awful lot like, _prison break twenty-four._ Gamora gives him a sharp look. Rocket shrugs innocently.

"I'll arrange for the doctor in charge of your care to have clearance to visit you there," Nova Prime says. She doesn't say anything about the colour scheme of the apartment. Drax doesn't look too upset about it.

"Thank you." Gamora smiles thinly. Her eyes flick to the door then Nova Prime. "I'm sure you're very busy."

Nova Prime locks eyes with Gamora. Peter can feel the battle of wills. It's surreal to watch. He's absorbed enough Xandarian cultural knowledge to know that Nova Prime is a seasoned battle veteran. And he's seen Gamora in action. The two of them put together have probably clocked more combat hours than the entire crew of the Eclector.

"Yes. Very." Nova Prime gives Gamora a curt nod and ignores the rest of them like the dumb losers they are. She marches out, head held perfectly parallel to the floor.

He really can not believe he met Nova Prime. That has to be a Ravager first.

Rocket smacks his arm.

"Ow! Jeez!" Peter scowls down at him. "What's your problem, dude?"

Rocket smacks his arm again. "Don't stick your big dumb humie fingers into the incision, moron."

Peter glances at his arm. It's already drifting back towards his neck again. He hadn't even realized he was scratching at the foam bandage. "Oh. I— _ow!"_ He dances back, away from Rocket. "Dude! Cut it out!"

Rocket snickers at him and shoves more stolen goods into his vest. "So, Nova Prime, that was intense. I heard she killed, like, eight guys with her bare hands one time."

Drax makes an appreciative noise. "A great warrior! It's good that her people chose a competent leader."

"I think we should stay."

Everyone stops to stare at Gamora. She does that whole nervous vibe thing again. It's just as freaky now as it was when he had a gaping wound on the back of his neck. It really needs to stop. She's starting to freak him out. Hospitals make him antsy as it is.

"Yeah," Peter agrees. Anything to make it stop. Especially if it'll help Gamora. "They haven't arrested us yet and Rocket was stealing shit right in front of Nova Prime. I think we have a golden ticket."

Everyone turns to stare at _him._

"...a golden ticket?" Drax turns the words over in his head. He frowns and shakes his head. "That's impractical. Gold is far too weak a metal for such an item."

He's really going to have to factor in all things Drax into his conversations if they're going to hang out together now. "It's just a saying. It means we're being given a good thing and we should take it."

"It should be an iron ticket," Drax says, apparently incapable of letting it go. "Iron has many more uses and would—"

" _The point!"_ Peter cuts him off before he really starts trying to parse the finer detail of metaphors. "Is I agree with Gamora. We should stay."

"We should?" Gamora doesn't sound convinced now that he's agreeing. He should probably take offence to that but it's been a really long day and besides, Gamora is still in reds and that _does things_ to him apparently.

(which is _weird._ He's spent years working up the courage to _just fucking leave already._ That familiar red shouldn't be a turn on. Like, at all. Ever. _Yondu_ wears reds for freaking sake. Gamora shouldn't look so good in them)

"We should," Peter affirms. He waves his hand at their little group, motioning for them to come closer. Team huddles are his specialty. "We've all been losers for a really long time. And we, uh, we lost more today." He motions to the sticks tucked into Rocket's pouch. "But now we're finally being offered something. I think we should stick around and see what it is. What's the worse that could happen?"

Drax opens his mouth.

Peter raises his hand. "That was rhetorical." He thinks better of leaving it at that. "That means you're not supposed to answer the question because we already know the answer."

"I knew that." Drax crosses his arms and manages to _pout_ with all four hundred pounds of muscle and tattoos.

"Great." Peter rolls his eyes. Seriously, the dude is basically made out of muscle, how does he manage to sulk like that? "Anyway, we should stay."

"Yeah, they at least owe us a new ship." Rocket zips and snaps up all his pockets. "And maybe some of those canons they had on their star blasters. I bet I could make a really sweet gun out of a couple of those babies."

Drax starts in on how it's not possible to build guns out of babies while Rocket groans and explains which just leads to more _Drax Questions_ that lead to more explaining.

Peter ignores them in favour of staring back at Gamora.

"What?"

She shakes her head. "It's nothing." She glances at the window where two camera drones are bouncing off the glass like bugs. "You're right. We should stay. See what they'll do."

Peter sidles closer to her. "It was your idea."

She frowns. "Yes. It was." She steps away from him.

He's got the sense that he just struck out big time. He's got no idea why.

Gamora looks up. For one shining second Peter thinks maybe he's got a chance after all. Instead the door opens behind him and a woman with a datapad walks in.

"I'm Liruy Vail, Nova Prime's assistant." She glances at her datapad. "Space Lord—"

Rocket and Drax burst out laughing.

Peter drops his head to his chest. One day the name will stick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like there's a lack of ravager!Peter in post vol 1 fics. He's been a ravager for a couple of decades and only really stopped being one maybe a day or two before the big Ronan dance off. So, yeah, here is Peter relating back more to being a ravager and less to being terran. 
> 
> Also, I think it's super weird that in most scifi humans can just eat anything aliens can eat and vice versa. So my general headcanon is that humans are freaks of nature that can eat theobromine, the stuff that gives chocolate it's bitter taste. 
> 
> The reverse headcanon to that is that urushiol is actually widely edible among aliens. Urushiol is found in things like, poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac (there's a theme there, eh?). Which can be eaten by a lot of stuff on earth (raccoons among them) but us humans are dumb and get allergic reactions from it. So, Peter's whole "urushiol allergy" is more just it's really bad for humans to mow down a bunch of space poison ivy.


	2. If trust was just a simple thing then trusting I would be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world really does hate him.

They're dumped off in the _Golden Jutha Lily Room_ after a bit of doctoring. The room is some big honour according to Nova Prime's assistant. If you ask Rocket – which no one ever does – the room is the biggest waste of units ever. No one needs gold stitching in blankets or gold Nova star inlays on every surface available. There's enough gold in _the decoration_ to re-wire a pilot's console. Hell, if him and Groot had known this was all sitting here before they got dragged into all the orb crap...

Rocket sticks a hand into his waist pouch and runs his fingers over what's left of Groot. Vines wrap around his fingers and travel unseen up his arm. It's a ghost; a glitch in his cybernetics. He should have started diagnosing it hours ago.

"Wow. They are so lucky I'm not working." Quill picks up a blue crystal vase – with veins of gold, of course – and scratches his fingernail against the crystal. He glances up at Gamora. His weird pink humie flesh gets pinker. He laughs nervously. "Not that. I ain't. 's not like..."

Quill puts the vase back and stops babbling in his awful hick Xanadarian. He claps his hands together and marches towards the full sized kitchen. Also covered in ridiculous gold detailing. Whatever Nova lackey is responsible for decorating has more units than brains.

"Alright, what does everyone drink?" Quill tosses his jacket onto the counter. His dusty, blood stained jacket. All over the place they're expected to make food for the foreseeable future.

Gross.

Not that he's surprised. He saw the ship Quill came from. No wonder he's got some kind of gut mod that lets him eat poison. He probably would have died without it.

"...you want to drink? Now?" Gamora says. She's still standing near the door, like maybe she'll make a break for it after all. It's not a bad idea.

Quill shrugs and starts opening cupboards. He makes an appreciative, _ah ha,_ and pulls out a bottle of frankly disturbing orange liqueur. "We can make orange comet spinners!"

Drax starts going on about comets and drinking. Rocket doesn't bother to acknowledge the specifics of whatever it is that Drax is ranting about. The whole gun made from babies thing at the hospital was enough dumb for him today.

"You had brain surgery twice less than five hours ago." Gamora says, as if maybe Quill forgot about that little fact. From what Rocket has seen maybe he has.

"Well, yeah. I was gonna get Rocket to glue me back together." Quill points the toxic orange bottle towards him and winks. "Since you stole all that medical adhesive."

Drax shakes his head and announces to the room at large that Quill's ideas are awful. Which is true but that goes without saying. The idiot thought it'd be a good idea to grab an infinity stone with his bare hands. Can't get much worse than that.

"So?" Quill points the bottle at his neck. "You up for it now or...?" He shakes the bottle at Rocket.

Rocket grabs three packets of medical adhesive from various zippered pockets. Invisible vines wrap around his arms. He tosses the medical adhesive onto the counter where Quill is already pouring out drinks. "Do it yourself."

He's reached his maximum capacity for caring about these idiots. He needs to get away. Be alone. Run some diagnostics on the ghosting in his arms. Could be nothing. A loose connection, a fried sensor. Could be a complete failure of his nervous system that's about to send him into an irreversible coma.

He spies a door that he guesses leads to a bedroom and makes for it. He doesn't give some dumb excuse. Not that he needs one. He doesn't owe them anything.

The bedroom lock is too damn high. He has to drag a chair over to lock himself in. As soon as the door _snicks_ shut he turns tail and makes for the b—

The world really does hate him.

On the wide windowsill are a row of potted plants. Leafy. Green. _Alive._

Smashing the potted plants to the ground isn't as cathartic as he'd hoped it would be. He stands over them and huffs. His head is one big furry ball of shaking rage. These dumb plants are _alive._ He grinds his heel into the nearest one. 

There's a gentle knock on the door.

"Rocket?" It's Gamora. "Are you okay?"

_"Fan-freaking-tastic,"_ Rocket snarls. He kicks at a pile of dirt and mangled plant. "Now leave me the hell alone!"

He climbs up the bed and drags all the pillows and blankets around himself. He presses a pillow against his ears to muffle the sounds of Quill and Drax arguing about comets. It doesn't help muffle all those voices in his head whispering about the disgusting little monster that failed its only friend.

Whatever glitch is wreaking havoc with his nervous system chooses right then to start tickling his fur with leaves.

He unclips his pouch and digs out the sticks he saved from Groot. What's left is so small. Groot used to hold him. Now all that's left is something so small it fits into his creepy little paws.

Everything feels too heavy and too dark. It probably wasn't a good idea to lock himself in if his cybernetics are glitching like they are. He could be slipping into that coma; power surges shorting out his brain.

He curls around Groot. He doesn't sleep so much as pass out.

 

 

(his dreams are old ones. Old memories, he thinks. Probably the oldest ones he has but he's not sure. All those early memories muddle together.

These ones are blurry around the edges. Soft in a way he's never been. Water runs over his hands. Gentle chittering and musky earth-and-animal smells surround him in the dark. Fur and warmth presses against him and tickles his nose.

He isn't inclined to blatant self-denials. He knows what he is: a little monster made in a lab. But some part of him came before that and at night it seeps through. It's a warm little place for the monster to hide in. The only time his brain quiets and feels safe.

You would have to threaten to take him apart limb by limb and make good on the threat before he ever admitted it)

 

 

It's dark when he slinks back into the common room.

The light is on in the kitchen. Three full glasses of that toxic orange shit Quill had found are on the table. The gross bloody jacket is still on the counter— they're gonna need to have a talk about basic hygiene if they're actually gonna stick together...and if he lives longer than a week.

He stalks silently through the common room. Quill is slumped across one of the couches with a bottle in each hand and one of those ridiculous gold thread blankets half pulled across him. Gamora and Drax are nowhere to be seen.

Great. He didn't want to talk to anyone anyway.

The glitch sends vines twirling up his fingers. He twists his hand; tries to bring Groot closer. The glitch fades out. He can't even have a ghost of Groot.

He climbs up a chair at the kitchen table as far from Quill's gross drinks as possible. Even from across the table they smell like sugary death warmed over.

He unclips the pouch with Groot in it and sets it on the table. He runs his fingers over it. _Everything_ he has left of Groot is inside of this one small pouch. He doesn't know what's happening to the rest of Groot's body. He doesn't know if the cleanup crews even _know_ the brunt up splinters are a body. What if they're throwing Groot out with the trash?

_What if they think Groot is trash?_

Rocket shudders. He climbs across the table. He grabs the first of the cups and chugs it back. It tastes as awful as it smells. He doesn't stop until all three are sloshing in his stomach.

It's not enough to get to that perfect zero fucks given state of drunk.

He crawls across the table and gets the pouch. He can't leave Groot lying around like a bunch of trash too. He swallows down a sob. He _already_ left Groot lying around like trash. He's scattered across half a city block! And no one knows—

"Fuck this."

He rolls off the table, stumbles over to Quill, and steals the two half empty bottles off him. It's not like the big dumb humie needs them. Hell, can Quill even get drunk if he's got some shady off the books toxin processing mod? Really, he's doing the world a favour, appreciating fine liquor the way it was meant to be instead of filtering out all the good brain damaging stuff that makes you forget.

He takes the bottles back to the bedroom. He locks the door, drains a bottle, and spreads the sticks of Groot across the bed.

He traces the sticks with a shaking finger. He still doesn't understand it, how Groot could give his life for someone else; for an asshole like him and some humies he barely knows. He wouldn't have done it. He would have saved himself.

Maybe he would have tried to save Groot if he could but if he couldn't...

Who's he kidding? He's a selfish asshole.

The second bottle goes down harder. It covers up the burn in his throat, let's him pretend it's burning his eyes too.

He gathers up the sticks and clutches them to his chest. He rubs his cheek over them (he'd shoot anyone right in the face if they claimed they heard him whispering _we are groot)._ He waits for the no fucks given blackout drunk to kick in.

It doesn't. He slides headlong into something worse: _sad drunk._

Rocket cradles the last bit of Groot in his arms and weaves around the bedroom. His room, he guesses. For now anyway. Until someone wises up and figures out he's not a real person.

He puts the sticks on the bed. Picks them up. Puts them back down. Picks them up again and presses them against his face. Groot _died._ To save him. Why would anyone do that? He's not worth it.

He spends a couple minutes wandering around the room sobbing because why not? It's not like he can get more pathetic at this point.

Oh, but, it turns out he _can_ . He trips over one of the potted plants he'd smashed to the floor. He drops the sticks of Groot. They land in the dirt beside the bright leafy green _living_ plants. It's a perfect reminder of how he's alive and Groot's dead and won't drink out of fountains anymore or eat weird stuff or make flowers or impale assholes with his arms when they call him an animal.

"Groot!" He snatches the sticks up and tries to brush the dirt off. "I shouldn't have made you come. Shouldn't have ever got you involved. Should have left you alone. Never met you."

The dirt won't come off. His only friend is dead and the dirt won't come off.

It doesn't really form as a coherent thought in his head. His frantic brushing slows and stops. He stares at the dirt. One hand drifts down to right a pot. Most of the dirt is still inside. He yanks the plant out and scoops dirt from the floor into the pot. He's pushed one of the sticks into the soil before he can stop himself.

He stares at the little bare stick. _What the hell does he think he's doing?_

The rest of the pots are righted, their plants tossed into the corner. They get new inhabitants.

Rocket puts the pots back on the windowsill and adjusts until they're in a perfect little row.

He sits down on the bed and stares at the pots and their single sad Groot sticks.

Three hours later he finds out there's an en suite bathroom and that Quill's awful drinks taste just as bad the second time around. He crawls to the bed and buries himself with no intention of ever coming out again.

 

 

(these dreams are more familiar, more defined. Shadow monsters with plastic gloves stick his neck with needles, fill him with heat and pain. They crack his skull open. They twist his limbs. They cut him up and sew him back together.

Everything is too bright. Harsh and cold. The nasal burn of antiseptic claws at his head.

He's aching and alone and afraid it will go on forever)

 

 

The ghost of vines wrapping around his arms and across his chest wakes him. He sits up in bed and stares at the pots on the windowsill. Each one contains a single bare stick; little corpses standing at attention. Doubt and rage tumble through his head. He should take them out. Or finishing burying them.

He leaves them. Apparently he's a lot more fucked up than even he realized.

The humies are eating lunch. Drax and Quill are shovelling some kind of stuffed pastries into their mouths. Gamora is carefully cutting hers up. Rocket watches her for a moment. She isn't trying to be _polite_ or some dumb shit like that. She's inspecting each piece, looking for signs that the food has been tampered with.

If the glitches are anything to go by, his life is going to be way too short to care about Nova Prime poisoning his food. He's probably been experiencing the slow mass failure of his nervous system. He might as well take what he can get while he can still get it.

"Hey, Rocket." Quill waves a pastry at him. "Finally got hungry, huh?"

"Looks like." He snags a pastry off of Quill's plate.

Quill twitches and gets all shifty looking. He clears his throat and turns back to Drax. "Anyway _,_ sam-wrenches are the pinnacle of lunch cuisine and I still can't believe they haven't caught on in this galaxy."

"What's a sam-wrench?" Rocket pokes at the open sides of the pastry. The filling starts to squish out.

" _Sam_ - **wrench** ," Quill repeats.

"That's what I said." Rocket runs his thumb along the escaping filling and sticks it in his mouth. It's some kind of minced meat. He takes a bite of the pastry. More filling squishes out the sides. Sam-wrenches are kind of dumb. All the good parts fall out.

"Quill is sharing important Terran foods with us." Drax reaches over and picks out a different kind of sam-wrench pastry off Quill's plate.

Quill chokes and splutters. Gamora offers him a glass of water. He gets even more red and waves the glass away. "I'm– I'm f-fine." He looks between the three of them and gets that shifty look again.

"What is that?" Rocket gestures at Quill's face with the pastry. "You getting seizures from picking at the implant? Or do you always look like that?"

Another wave of red washes over Quill's face. "Nope, totally fine." He admits defeat and divvies up the rest of the pastries on his plate. He slides three plates across the table, one to each of them, and gives a little obnoxious speech about everyone having their own plates.

Rocket grabs his plate and climbs up onto the chair beside Quill. He's halfway through his stolen pastry – and pointedly ignoring the creep of vines up his back – when he smacks Quill in the stomach. "So, what do you got in there? Microbial hack? Intestinal mod? Can I see it?"

"Huh? Uh, no?" Quill looks down at his stomach. "I don't have any mods. Just the translator."

"So, what? You just _learned_ how to eat poison?" Rocket squints at Quill's stomach. It's probably some kind of specialized microbial cocktail if Quill doesn't think it's a mod. People don't understand the basic definitions of modding.

"Eat..." Quill mouths the word poison and frowns. He laughs. "Oh! No, that's natural."

" _Natural?_ Terrans can just eat theobromine?" There were lots of things that could eat theobromine. Most of them were bacteria and pests that tended to hang around civilization to eat garbage. Orloni could eat theobromine. Humies did not.

Unless they had something fun to poke at inside them.

Quill shrugs. "Yep. Chalk-legs is great."

Sam-wrenches and chalk-legs. How did they not _all_ die yesterday?

"Chalk-legs?" Gamora asks, clearly regretting it as soon as she asked.

Quill turns to her and smiles with a lot more teeth than a regular normal person would who's staring at a daughter of Thanos. The guy's got serious problems.

"It's a kind of candy on Terra!" Quill says. "It's made out of coco beans and dogs can't eat it because they'll get sick and die from it. Because of the theobromine...well, I'm pretty sure it's because of that."

Drax and Gamora push their plates away (Gamora was right about checking for poison, just not from the right source).

Quill launches into his long sob story about how he was taken from Terra when he was really little, so he never got to go to school or be with his family and all that crap. Boo hoo. At least he had people looking out for him. He's so involved in blathering on about his boring-ass childhood that he completely misses Gamora and Drax tossing his food.

Rocket contemplates the half eaten pastry in his hand. With a sigh, he tosses it onto the table too. Yeah, maybe his nervous system is breaking down but getting poisoned doesn't actually sound like a better way to keel over.

Then Drax finally does something useful.

"In my village," Drax interrupts. "We used the essence of the kitch fruit to kill vermin that would eat the grain for the livestock."

Gamora nods like she's got first hand experience with poisoning vermin. Rocket doesn't have to be a genius to know it was probably vermin of the larger variety.

Drax stands and goes to the fridge. He starts pulling things out. "The young children would collect the fruit before the first frosts. The older children on the cusp of becoming adults would smash the fruits into a pulp. We— the adults would boil it down and dry it into a fine powder. And the elders would take the powder and set the traps."

He finishes up his little how to make poison story by presenting them each with a plate of shredded vegetables and cubed meat.

"The Nova Empire lacks the simplest ingredients for a proper meal but this is similar to the meal one would eat after a battle." Drax waves his hands proudly at the plates. "It aids in digestion!"

"Uh, thanks, man." Quill grabs a fork and starts gorging himself. It's kinda gross.

Because they're the only two people in the room that aren't complete dumbasses Gamora shares a look with Rocket. How much do they really know about Drax? Yeah, his people are completely literal but that doesn't mean they can't lie by withholding the truth. Maybe Drax had more than one reason for telling Ronan where they were.

Or maybe they're being paranoid. He's not sure Drax is smart enough to pull something like that off.

Rocket picks up a fork. "I'll eat it if you eat it."

Gamora slowly reaches for her own fork.

Rocket grins at her. "Die among friends, right?"

Gamora exhales a little louder than normal. Rocket supposes it's a laugh.

They eat Drax's post-battle meal and ignore Quill's whining about how he wasn't poisoning them. Then they have a whole lot of free time to sit and stare at each other.

Rocket makes for his room instead. He doesn't want to get dragged into another _when I was a snot-nosed baby_ or an _in my village_ story. Those two have no idea what tragic backstory means. If there aren't at least four against your will surgeries, you had a fan-freaking-tastic childhood if you ask him.

He shares another look with Gamora before she goes to hide out in her room too.

Sitting and staring at the wall in his room turns out to be worse. At least if he had stayed out in the common room he'd be annoyed. Alone in his own room...well, that's a lot of time to stare at the little half buried sticks and think about Groot being dead.

He sits for ten minutes then stacks the furniture up in the corner and pulls out a light panel. His little stick shrine for Groot needs more water. The bathroom is probably the best place for them, but the light in there is awful for plants. It shouldn't take much work to rig up a lamp with the right spectrum and intensity. And if he grabs a few things from the kitchen he can probably build a mist sprayer in the bathtub.

It'll be a regular plant oasis.

He is a lot more screwed up than he gives himself credit for. Even the weirdos out in the common room aren't trying to grow parts of their dead friends.

Not like self-awareness is gonna stop him though.

Rocket gets to work and quickly falls into the easy blankness of doing a job. His hands glide over parts and twist wires together. His brain doesn't do anything unpleasant, like _thinking._ It's only him, the parts, and the task.

He's moving the first pot into the bathtub when someone knocks at his door.

"What'd ya want?" Rocket yells. "I'm busy!"

"The doctor is here." It's Gamora. Makes sense that it's her. He didn't hear her coming. She's the only one that doesn't lumber around like jotunheim beast in a mirror shop. "He'd like to check on your burns."

Burns? He looks down at himself. His fur is matted and singed; gone in other places, leaving behind angry red welts and cuts. He turns his hands over and stares at his palms. The skin on one is cracked and oozing.

"Rocket?"

"Yeah, yeah. I heard you." Rocket balls his hands into fists. The skin of his palm twinges with distant pain. It gets buried under the feel of vines. "Tell'em to leave me some antibiotics and bandages. I'll fix them up myself later."

"...are you sure?"

"Nah, I'm just saying that for fun." Rocket picks up the next pot and moves it into the bathroom.

"Alright...I'll tell him."

When he comes out hours later for food and the medical supplies Drax and Gamora are gone again. Quill is sitting alone on a couch in the common room with a new bottle beside him. His hands are bandaged up and he's got something that smells like used grease from an engine slathered on his face. Tear tracks run through the salve on his face. He's staring at a news feed and making pathetic snorting sounds.

No way in hell is he sticking around to find out what has Quill all worked up and upset. Rocket backs up and bumps into a one of the chairs from the kitchen.

Quill flinches at the clatter of the chair. He snorts and makes to rub his face before he remembers the salve. He tries to glance over, looking all nonchalant, like he wasn't crying over a news feed. "Oh, hey, Rocket."

"Uh, yeah, hey, Quill." Rocket straightens the chair out.

They both pretend like this isn't awkward.

"You, uh..." Quill holds up the bottle. "Want some?"

He'll look back on this moment and always wonder why the hell he went over and sat down beside a weepy Quill.

Because he does. Sit down. Beside Quill.

Before he can reach for the bottle the glitches act up again. Invisible vines wrap around him from finger tips to elbow. He shakes his hand and smacks it off his leg a couple of times.

"What's it doing?" Quill juts his chin at Rocket.

"What's it _look_ like I'm doing?" Rocket gives his hand another smack against his leg then grabs the bottle.

Quill grinds his jaw. He shakes his head a little. "I meant your hand. It's ghosting, right?"

Rocket freezes for a split second. He takes a gulp from the bottle and passes it back to Quill. He isn't going to have this conversation. Not with Quill. Not with anyone. If he's dying, he deserves it. He should have tried harder to save Groot.

Quill bites his lip. He draws his shoulders up then lets them sink back down. He reaches a hand out towards Rocket's hand. It hovers in the air between them. "It would be really awesome if you didn't maul me."

That's all the warning Rocket gets before Quill takes his hand in his own and starts pressing on the joints.

He doesn't know what to do. He _hates_ it when people touch him. It took years for him to be kinda okay with Groot touching him. And now Quill's grabbing his hand like it's no big deal.

The vines stop creeping up his arm.

"How'd you know to do that?" Rocket asks, staring at Quill's big pink fingers as they move. They highlight just how freakishly small his own hands are.

Quill sticks the bottle between his legs then uses both hands to press little circles into the joints of Rocket's thumb. "Ravager home remedy. Your mods aren't failing until you're loosened up and failing. Sometimes it's just a tense muscle pinching a wire...which you probably already know."

"Yeah." Rocket doesn't jerk his hand back he just... _lets it happen._ It's not a massage. That would make it really weird. Quill is just digging his fingers in, in a circular motion. It's not weird, it's like when lab techs and doctors feel around for broken stuff. Strictly professional.

He takes the bottle back from Quill and takes a few sips. Anything to make this less awkward.

"So...where'd Gamora and the big idiot go?" Rocket asks, ignoring Quill as he moves from his thumb to the next finger. The burns on his hand slowly register as painful. The nerve sensors must be have been pinched.

"Risk assessment," Quill says. "Repeat murder is a hard sell to the parole board."

Rocket nods along. He doesn't know shit about parole boards. He doesn't hang around in prison long enough to find out. And all his murdering is strictly hypothetical. It's not his fault if people turn up dead later on.

It gets really, really quiet. He waits for Quill to start spouting off about some boring Terran thing like he usually does.

He doesn't. It makes the not-a-massage weird again.

Rocket points, with bottle in hand, at the news feed.

"What're you watching?" Rocket asks. It's some official Nova feed. It's live streaming a fireworks display. Looks like he can add Nova Empire to the list of messed up persons. Who sets off fireworks when their capital planet nearly got vapourized?

Quill swallows hard. He glances at the news feed. He lets go of Rocket for a moment to bang his fist on his chest. He mutters something Rocket's translator can't make out. He goes back to Rocket's hand.

"It's a Ravager funeral."

Rocket squints at the news feed. In the background, mostly covered by fireworks, is the Eclector. There's a few M-ships at the fringes that don't look like they belong in Yondu's fleet.

Instead of one of the few hundred snide remarks he could say he goes with, "Oh."

"Yeah." Quill focuses really hard on Rocket's hand. Rocket thinks they're going to knock it off with the awkward small talk and go back to the slightly less awkward silence but Quill grabs the bottle, takes a few chugs then, "We— they lost almost half the crew."

He goes on a long rambling explanation about what Ravagers have cooked up as their afterlife fairy tale and how they get completely shitfaced after a funeral. It's full of weird words Rocket's translator can't quite figure out. It goes for the most literal translations instead (little flames, ash-watch, glory colours). It really doesn't make any sense. Kinda a theme with Quill.

But Rocket gets the idea, you gotta honour your dead friends even if you don't believe in all that crap about magic beings and life after death. And because it sucks that you'll never see them again you might as well get completely wasted and hope the hangover hurts more than losing them.

That's probably why Rocket blurts out, "I don't know what they did with Groot."

Quill's ramble pauses. His fingers stop making the little circles. "I didn't...I thought you were..."

"Handling it?"Rocket laughs harshly. He finishes the bottle and throws it at the wall. Glass rains down onto the rich Nova carpets. "I got a few pieces of him and that's it! How the hell was I supposed to— He was in little pieces across half the block!"

The touching is too much. Rocket takes a swipe at Quill. He rakes his nails down his arm and leaves bloody tracks.

"Fuck!" Quill jumps off the couch.

Rocket climbs over the back before Quill can get himself together and get him back. He drops to all fours and dashes for his room. He slams the door and scrambles up the chair to lock it. He jumps down and darts across the room to the bathroom. To the shitty plant oasis. To Groot.

He curls up between the pots of dirt and dead sticks and sobs. He is so pathetic. He's not even good at being a little monster. What kind of monster goes and cries about friends dying? He shouldn't even have friends. Groot shouldn't have been his friend. Look what it got him.

Quill knocks on his door a few times. Rocket ignores him until he gets the hint and goes away.

He stays in the bathroom for three days. People come and knock on his door and say _Rocket_ like they're worried about him or some crap. Quill says sorry a lot. Gamora talks about doctors and cybernetic diagnostics and grief counselors. Drax repeatedly yells through the door that _a sedentary life leads to heart troubles and bad digestion!_

Rocket ignores them.

He waters the dead sticks. He adjusts the lights for the dead sticks. He rearranges the dead sticks.

It doesn't take a genius to see that he's completely out of his damn mind. Someone is going to come in soon and see it and finally put him out of his misery.

On the fourth day Rocket uncurls from his corner by the pots and sits up. The glitching is back. It's worse than before. He rubs his hands up and down his arms but it doesn't do much. Whatever. It won't be a problem for him much longer. Someone is going to figure out what to do about him soon anyway.

He fills up the little ceramic tumbler with the gold Nova star etched into it with water. He waters the dead sticks because he's nuts. Completely lost it. Destined for the garbage heap.

He drops the little ceramic tumbler in front of the pots.

One of the dead sticks has a single green leaf sprouting from the top.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have always assumed Rocket was in a really weird place when he decided to plant a baby and that he definitely didn't consult any of the others. 
> 
> And, I figure at some point around the end of vol 1 Peter and Rocket must had a late night drunk talk about ravager funeral customs since Rocket knew to call the other captains in vol 2, but everyone else was clueless about it.
> 
> Peter's fishy behaviour with the sandwiches is inspired by sharing snacks and ribbing ravagers ( https://archiveofourown.org/works/11525010 ) by grison. I rather like the idea that ravagers have very particular food related customs.
> 
> And lastly, I headcanon that all the little mix ups the guardians have about stuff Peter talks about is less to do with them not understanding the reference and more to do with Peter's eclectic language acquisition in early cihldhood, slowly forgetting english, getting a translator later in life, and coming from a multi-species/culture crew. Basically, ravagers speak various clan based creoles along with whatever languages the crew knows and to an outsider it sounds like an absolute mess.
> 
> Title is from A Tree Too Weak To Stand.


	3. Live for eighteen years or so (less of course you die of gunshot wounds)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the usual hodgepodge that makes up Ravager life and death.

A boot nudges Kraglin at the small of his back. He swats it away and curls tighter around whoever is nestled against his chest. He gets a mouthful of greasy hair and something crusty flakes off onto his cheek. He ain't complain', it beats waking up.

The boot digs in between knobbly vertebrae and grinds. Kraglin's back arches away. He hisses out a string of curses. He grabs for his knife and swings blindly. Serve the fucker right if he gets caught in the leg and bleeds out. "Pete, I swear, you do that—" His knife is plucked from his hand. "Hey!"

"Get up."

Kraglin's eyes flick open. The Captain's face is glaring down at him. Not in a particularly menacing way, Captain's face just kinda always looks like he's contemplating murder. He ambles up to his feet; jumpsuit twisting around his middle as it peels away from his sleep-mate. He does his best to not step on too many snoring crew mates as he picks his way out of the pile. His head protests every step by violently throbbing; vision turning black and spotty. Thirty-seven hours of Ravager style celebrating will do that.

He tugs at the booze soaked leathers twisted around his sides while he runs over his mental list of duties he must be slacking off on if the Captain is kicking him awake. He doesn't so much come up with nothing as run face first into a wall of pain. Brains are on strike until painkillers are had. Fair enough, he supposes.

"Uh, Cap'n?"

"Funerals start tomorrow," Captain says. He jerks his thumb over his shoulder. Kraglin stares. The Captain grumbles and rolls his eyes. "Gotta get 'em ready. Need another set of hands."

Kraglin squints his eyes, trying to get his brain to work. He's done setup for funerals before, ain't many Ravagers who haven't, but when it's a whole bunch like this it's usually the Captain and Horuz—

"Oh. Right."

The first mate had come back as goop in a vac bag.

Kraglin gives his jumpsuit another yank. With Horuz gone he's got work to do. He's been stepping up as first mate for years, following around in Horuz's shadow since the first time he'd threatened to retire.

(he still ain't got a clue why the Captain had picked him. He'd been a kid back then, still lying about his boot size and trading work for candy. Captain was just messing with Horuz; giving him a scrawny little apprentice with more gangly legs than brains. Except here he is still pretending to be first mate)

The damn jumpsuit twists around his middle even worse. He gives up with a huff. Ain't like he's going to be impressing anyone after the last two days. He glances over the piles of sleeping bodies. "You want me to wake anyone else up?"

The Captain shakes his head. "Let 'em sleep it off."

It's a long quiet walk to the oxygenerators. Every clang of their boots on the walkways sends shivers racing up and down Kraglin's spine. Losing a whole bunch of crew ain't uncommon. Accidents happen, jobs go bad. But the ship ain't ever _quiet._

The Captain slaps his hand on the bio-lock. There's a sad tinny beep. The door cracks open a sliver, fresh air seeps out. They still haven't gotten around to fixing motors on the door. It takes the two of them to pry it open and drag it close behind them.

Kraglin wipes the sweat and grime from his face. His head is already spinning. Too much oxygen. Too much green. The oxygenerators never did agree with him.

The Captain pounds on the equipment locker until it pops open. He digs out work gloves and shears. He passes Kraglin a couple buckets. They get to work. They'll need about a dozen flowers for each dead Ravager currently laid out in the ship-bay. They're gonna be breathing thin after this. Takes nearly a month for the flowers to grow back.

Kraglin follows along behind the Captain catching flowers and hauling buckets. They've got a bucket and a half full when the Captain clears his throat.

"After we're done, make the pilots busy," Captain says, dropping another handful of flowers from the oxygenerators without checking to make sure Kraglin is there to catch 'em. "Don't want anyone gettin' friendly with the airlocks."

"Already got 'em busy, Cap'n. Gunner's too." Kraglin had set up an around the clock schedule for the M-ship crews _before_ the drinks had been passed around. "Got 'em down for fixin' ship systems on the second quadrant. Everyone else, 'cept them that were extra friendly with a pilot or gunner, is breakin' down the junked ships."

It's the tried and true Ravager medicine for everyone left behind. Can't get friendly with the airlocks if you're too damn tired to move. Sure there was some cursing and bitching from the M-ship squads last night about getting up and doing _'fuckin' new recruit shit'_ when they could be repairing their M-ships. But there ain't no way he's letting them do it. Ravagers ain't shy about blood but it don't do anyone no good to see a sleep-mate's brains splattered all over the floor.

Captain nods. He snips off more flowers. "How many look like they're gonna be junk?"

"Uh..." Kraglin cranes his head over his shoulder, looking towards the ship-bay. The ships are a whole other problem his brain ain't ready to think over. The 51 M-ship fleet that went out came back with just 24. All his brain offers up right now is, _well that ain't good, now is it?_ "...six?"

The Captain grunts in acknowledgement. He grinds his jaw back and forth. He checks his comms watch. His lip twitches. Something's bothering him. _Other_ than a bunch of the crew being dead.

Kraglin's got a good guess as to what: Quill. He still hasn't come crawling back yet. Hasn't even sent a message as far as Kraglin knows.

No one would ever claim he's a genius but he's smart enough to not ask about it. When the Captain and Quill have their spats, it's best to stay out of the way. They'll knock each other around a bit, yell and scream and cuss, then laugh it off. Everything smooths out after until Quill gets another bug up his ass and the whole thing starts over again. It's exhausting, and ain't no one else who would get away with it, but it is what it is.

They head to the ship-bay with five buckets full of flowers. There's some kind of _sym-bowl-is-um_ to laying out the dead with the oxygenerator's flowers. Something to do with sharing breath. It's the kind of thing the first mate ought to know but he never paid much attention to.

He's gonna be awful at being first mate without Horuz there to smack him up 'side the head when he forgets stuff.

They ID the bodies – and assorted remains in various states of liquefied – as they work. The ship's roster whittles down from 158 to 143 to 112 to 97. It drops to 85 when they factor in the missing.

(and two of those 85 are patched together in the med-bay and looking awfully peaky. It's a heck of a time to be all on his lonesome as first mate)

Kraglin wipes his hand down his face. _73 crewmen gone in one battle._ It's nearly half the crew. He ain't sure the payout is worth it. It's a whole lot of units, but it cost a whole lot of people he's known for years.

When they're done there's ten neat rows of funeral slabs. Bodies and bits all laid out with flowers. The personal items will trickle in as the crew wakes up.

The funerals happen in fits and starts. Some as big as half of what's left of the crew, some as small as one Ravager. They double up, do them over, and have second, third, and fourth ones. There are Easik dirges sung in Xandarian. And Kyrolian funeral rites given in the ship's talk. It's the usual hodgepodge that makes up Ravager life and death.

Kraglin gets the really rough ones over first, people he's known since the beginning. He says a few words here and there and sings along to the laments he knows the words to. He sets out all the little things he knows his crew mates would want with them in the afterlife.

The Captain gives a last speech for everyone and then it's over. They did what they gotta do for the dead.

The first to go through the ship's incinerators are the Ravagers that don't got anyone else except the crew of the Eclector. They send them through in batches so they won't go alone. They light the Colours and pound their chests. Kraglin hopes they'll make it.

He ain't too sure how being banished stops your ghost from getting to the afterlife but he figures, well, they're Ravagers, sneaking into places they ain't supposed to be is what they do. Can't be much difference between sneaking into a bank wearing your meat and sneaking into the afterlife without it.

They wait a couple days, long enough to get the _die traitor scum, our Colours will never light your way!_ messages from other clans. So much for friends and family. They send most of the bodies left after that through the incinerator.

There's only a few bodies left once that's done with. Just the ones whose families didn't respond. They wait around in Nova space to see if anyone will show up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was working on the next official chapter (which will be a Gamora chapter) and was like...wow, writer's block. So, now I have a couple of "Ravager Interludes" to throw in.
> 
> The canon vs word-of-god discontinuity regarding how old Kraglin is and when he became first mate annoys me greatly. 
> 
> But! since we know pretty much nothing about him, I'm happy to make up an entire backstory to allude to wherein he was stomping around with the Ravagers when he was a kid and was made "apprentice" to the first mate mostly to just annoy the shit out of a really grouchy Horuz because that seems like the kind of thing Yondu would do.
> 
> Title is from Andy Kim's Nobody's Ever Going Anywhere.


	4. I'm all alone (with nothing to do)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When she told them that she had spent her life surrounded by enemies she left out the part about how those enemies were her siblings. That she's been surrounded by family her whole life but has always been alone.

She's lived most of her life under Thanos. Her father's idea of justice is swift, brutal, and entirely of his making. If an individual manages to survive Thanos's justice, seeking his forgiveness is a long and arduous trial that very few ever achieve. The last time she sought his forgiveness she was twelve. She came away bloody and broken and swearing she'd never disobey him again.

(Nebula never asked for forgiveness)

The idea that she could seek, and maybe even gain, forgiveness from an entire empire without destroying herself is fantastical. That they are actually contemplating pardoning her is breathtaking. They know who she is and what she's done, they know she's a monster. And yet, this panel of six, might deem her _worthy of forgiveness._

They are arranged in the points of the Nova star. Gamora watches them watch her. She watches them look at each other. She was told they were highly trained and personally vetted by Nova Prime. They look like completely average Nova Empire citizens, not at all like specially selected government officials (the Krylorian man is wearing mismatched sockets, grey and white).

 

They ask her questions:

How old was she when Thanos took her? _Seven, according to the Nova Empire's calendar._

When did she become aware of the orb's capabilities? _Several days after breaking out of prison when it blew up a building._

Did she coerce Peter Quill into writing his testimony? _...no?_

 

(These are the questions they do not ask:

How long had Nebula been planning to betray Thanos? _I don't know._

Why did she not take my hand? _I don't know._

Is my sister dead? _I don't know)_

 

They look at each other. She watches them. They stand and leave for a small room behind them. No matter how high she sets her auditory functions she can not hear what they're doing in that room. It's beyond frustrating.

She swallows down the urge to tear the door from its hinges, to demand to know what her fate is. She stays sitting on the chair they gave her. The corpsmen behind her cough. When she doesn't so much as blink over the course of twenty minutes the corpsmen quietly discuss weekend plans. They must not live in the capital city.

The panel of six comes back. They look at each other. They always look at each other, conferring with the group. There is no single person who wields justice like a weapon. They tell her to go for the day. They do not wait for her to leave before they pack their own things and return to the small room behind them.

Her stomach sinks. She had hoped they had finally made their decision. She isn't used to waiting for answers, to sitting idle. Her father would deliberate and cast his judgment in mere moments. She's come to these meetings for _days_ without gaining answers.

She stares at the door. Tearing it off the hinges would be so easy.

She doesn't go back to the apartment they've set aside for her and the others. She walks down long pristine halls, dotted here and there with potted plants and the Nova star on every sixth panel. She has nowhere to be and nothing to do. No missions to complete, no marks to research. Just endless free time between risk assessments. So she walks.

The corpsmen ordered to _escort_ her follow behind. They talk about their families. They talk about the battle. They talk as if she isn't going to cut them down where they stand. They talk as if they are not afraid of her.

She isn't sure how she feels about that. These people are fools to let their guard down around someone like her. And yet, the plethora of emotions that floods through her at the novelty of being treated as a person instead of Thanos's daughter are nearly too much to contain.

She's terrified her father will find out. That somehow he'll know that she's anxious and afraid; that she's the slightest bit pleased about not striking terror into those around her and occasionally even content for whole minutes at a time. She's terrified that he'll drag her back and start replacing parts until she's incapable of being anything but calm and calculating.

(she wonders if that's why Nebula wouldn't take her hand. Is Nebula simply no longer capable of feeling anything but calm calculation? How much is left of her sister if she's even still alive? Is there anything left beyond what Thanos has made her?

Her chest aches. Her sister is more than a daughter of Thanos)

Gamora makes her way back to the apartment only when the corpsmen behind her fall silent. She knows they're covertly checking the time. Their shift is over but they can't leave until she returns to the apartment or the next shift comes to relieve them.

When the elevator doors open onto their floor Peter is standing in front of her in the plain grey clothes that are popular on Xandar at the moment.

A nervous jolt of energy races through her. Seeing Peter in popular Xandarian fashion is frighteningly surreal. She wonders if she's finally broken. Has she made everything up these past few days? Did she merely imagine saving Xandar and her brain has been filling in the gaps in memory with the strangers she sees?

Did she ever really escape Thanos? Or is her body sitting alone in some room being watched remotely by her father's minions? Is this all a trick? A hallucination while her cybernetics are upgraded?

(will she wake up to Nebula scowling from the other side of the room? Demanding to know why it took her so long to recover?)

"Gamora!" Peter smiles, wide and friendly. She still doesn't quite understand why he's not afraid of her. Why no one seems to be afraid of her. He steps halfway into the elevator. "Got a message that they found the mid-deck of the Milano. The storage lockers are still intact. I'm gonna go get some _stuff_. Want to come?"

"What." Gamora's eyes sweep up and down the formless neutral grey tunic. "Are you wearing?"

Peter looks down at his chest. "...clothes?"

"Why?" It slips out before she thinks the question through. Anger erupts across her mind at her carelessness. She doesn't ask questions before she thinks. Never. Questions are dangerous, answers even more so.

"Uh..." Peter's face flushes pink. "What exactly are we talking about here?"

She doesn't know. She hates that she doesn't know. She hates that these basic facts of the universe are not true: people fear her, Peter wears red. She hates the ambiguity they've left behind. She hates that she doesn't know what to do when everyone around her takes these changes in stride. She hates that she hates it. She doesn't know why she's so angry about something so trivial. She hates that too.

(Nebula would probably laugh at her.

No. Nebula doesn't laugh.

Her stomach churns. How would she know what Nebula would do? She hadn't known she was going to betray their father)

"Right. Okay. I'm sensing this is something we're _not_ talking about here." Peter pointedly looks at the corpsmen behind her. He grins at her again. "So? You coming?"

"Yes?"

Why is he always smiling? What does he have to smile about? A destroyed ship? And some junk that's not as damaged as the rest of it? Why does it bother her so much that he seems happy?

Why does the voice asking these questions sound like they're reporting to her father?

The corpsmen rustle behind her. One quietly coughs as if to get her attention that they still exist, that they have families to go home to and weekend plans. Lives. Everything that she does not have.

The corpsman behind Peter – he's only assigned one when he leaves – waves at someone further down the hall. "Can you swap with Taas and Lveara? Turnover is in twenty minutes. They can take up here, and we can swing by security on the way down."

There's no discussion. The corpsmen abandon their posts without direct orders. She can't quite believe it. If someone had asked her the same thing she would have assumed it was a poorly thought out trick. Even now, she carefully evaluates the situation for threats. This could be an impromptu attempt to kill them with as few witnesses as possible.

It doesn't faze Peter in the slightest. He rambles at length about Xandarian dramas and his Terran music. She doesn't know what to say so she says nothing.

They stop at the security building. The corpsmen switch out with new ones. They don't appear to fear her either. They walk to the transportation decks. They're politely ushered into a discreet unmarked government transport. Now would be the time to secret them away and kill them; dump their bodies into one of the fires that are still burning in the city. No one would ever know if they picked a fire burning hot enough to melt her implants.

No one tries to kill them.

Peter runs out of opinions on entertainment while they wait for someone to let them into the hanger-turned-evidence lab. They stand silently. Peter shifts back and forth on his feet. He taps his fingers on his leg. He doesn't ever stop _moving_.

(Nebula would hate that. She's sure of it. Nebula could never stand pointless fidgeting.

Or maybe Nebula doesn't care, maybe she only lashes out at those who can not stand still because their father loathes it)

The silence doesn't last long.

"Hey!" He takes a little datapad from a fold in the tunic and shows her a series of official Nova Empire documents. "Check it out, they gave me a citizenship certificate, a health card, a pilot's license, and a passport." He chuckles but it's not the lighthearted sound she expects. This is almost...bitter. "Guess they noticed all of mine were fake."

There's something in that statement. Some old hurt. She can sense it but it's just beyond her reach. She suspects someone who wasn't raised to be a mass murderer would know what it was.

"That's...good." Gamora offers. Anger lashes her insides again. She's a highly trained assassin, skilled at blending in. She should be able to make _small talk_ . She should be able to at least _act_ like a normal person.

Peter's face goes blank. His mouth falls open. He looks horrified. "Oh, jeez. Right. Right." He stuffs the datapad back into the tunic. The pocket disappears into the folds. "Sorry."

It takes her a moment to understand why he's sorry. She actually laughs when she realizes that he's apologizing for the Nova Empire pardoning him and giving him legal citizenship while she's still waiting to see if they'll send her back to prison.

It's just. It's _absurd._ Of course they'd pardon Peter. He's a petty criminal, practically harmless in comparison to the monster that she is.

Peter laughs along nervously. "Heh, yeah, pretty funny..."

Gamora shakes her head. "It's fine, Peter. I expected this. I have a lot to make up for." She leaves it unsaid that much of it will never be made right.

Peter's face tightens. "You saved a whole planet."

Not for the first time it strikes her how guileless Peter can be despite being a conman. She knows that he's aware of her past. And yet...

"Did they get the statement I wrote?" Peter asks abruptly. "If they're pretending they didn't get it I'll come down and give it in person." He clenches his hand into a fist and smacks it into his palm. "I can be very persuasive."

He glances behind them at the corpsmen. His hands drop to his sides. He smiles, it's blatantly insincere. "With words. I'm very good with my words."

She'd forgotten about that mysterious question. "They asked me about it. If I made you write it. What did you say?"

"That you were the one who said we had to give the orb to Nova," Peter says. He turns to the corpsmen. "She basically gave you guys the Ark of the Covenant _for free_. That's pretty altruistic if you ask me. I wanted to get paid."

"...the boat of the deal?" the corpsman assigned to Peter asks. He looks equally perplexed as she feels. At least she isn't the only one confused.

"What? _No."_ Peter launches into a detailed description of a man who wears a hat and wields a whip and hates _'snates'_.

Gamora doesn't know what to say. Not about Peter's insistence that she's a good person or his strange Terran story. It is so very frustrating.

Does she say thank you? For being a fool that thinks one good deed undoes all of the atrocities she's been involved in?

Does she tell him to retract the statement? Least it endanger his pardon.

Does she demand to know who, exactly, is Omadda Bones? And why does he put ghosts in a box? Are the _snates_ also in the box?

Before she can say anything a slim door beside the entry checkpoint opens. She and Peter are asked for a hand scan. The corpsmen assigned to escort them scan their badges. They go through the process twice more before a harried looking forensics technician stops them in front of one last door.

"I'll be your guide," she says. "Do _not_ touch anything." She glares at Peter in particular. He raises his hands innocently. She puts her hand on the door and pushes. "If you're going to need to puke or otherwise eject, secrete, or discharge bodily fluids grab a bag now." She points to a small dispenser on the wall, full of white plastic bags.

Gamora doesn't take a bag. There's little she can imagine that would override her cybernetics' control. And little that she hasn't seen before.

Peter doesn't take a bag either.

The hanger proper is covered in debris. Parts of ships are scattered about. There is tape on the floor, outlining where the wreckage of one ship ends and another begins. It smells like smoke, fuel, and blood. It smells like a battlefield.

The corpsmen hesitate behind them. They suck in stunned breathes. They whisper thanks to gods for their families. They mutter superstitions to ward off evil. They shuffle back into the room to get bags.

Peter sings a nonsensical song – _dun dundun dun! Dun dundun da!_ _–_ as he bounces alongside the forensics technician as if they are not walking through a graveyard.

Gamora follows behind them. The carnage is nothing new to her. She's walked through worse, calmly watched it happen. But this is the first time she's allowed to _look._ Thanos never let them linger.

(she remembers only one time she has ever hesitated. The first time Nebula had been sent out with her. Nebula had stopped and stared. She had stopped and stood alongside her.

In her memory Nebula has tears on her face but she knows it's impossible, Nebula's tear ducts were one of the first things their father had removed, opting for more efficient methods of removing debris from Nebula's eyes)

She expects the military crafts; Kree, Nova, Sakaaran, Ravager. For some reason she does not expect the civilian vehicles. And there are so many. Single person flyers for speedy trips across urban centres, public transit vehicles, luxury crafts of the rich. Family vehicles.

There are no bodies. Clearly, they're removed before they come to this ship graveyard but there is old blood in every colour. It paints the ships in rainbows.

She doesn't stop. She sweeps her eyes over each vehicle and wonders if there are little girls waiting for parents who will never come home. She wonders if there are little girls in hospitals asking where their sisters are. She wonders if there are little girls left all alone.

(she wonders if Nebula is alive to think about her. She wonders if she would)

The technician stops in front of a blue and orange pile of twisted metal. "This is it." She sticks her arm out before Peter can rush to what they've found of his ship. "We've been over it four times now. We're fairly certain we've removed all remains and weapons. If you come across any remains or _happen to find_ any weapons you leave them where they are and immediately report them to me. Got that?"

"Of course," Peter says, grinning. "What do you think I am? A criminal?" He winks and chuckles.

The technician is not amused. She waves Peter on, scowling at his back as he breezes past.

Gamora forces herself to study every pile of wreckage while they wait. This is what she's done to people. Not here, not this time, but on so many other planets. She's a monster. Nova will never forgive her crimes. The other's will be pardoned and she will be sent to prison alone.

There's some banging and cursing from the wreckage then Peter climbs out the top of it. He's got an orange bin tucked under his arm.

"Got what I wanted." Peter hops down from the twisted metal.

The technician searches the bin and seems disappointed that there are no weapons, just bits of shiny junk. She doesn't appear to notice that the long lines of Peter's tunic are no longer smooth.

Peter is hiding something.

She waits until they're back at the apartment and behind the locked door to ask what he's smuggled out of his ship.

"Smuggle?" He reaches under his tunic and takes out a small colourful box. Absurdly she wonders if _this_ is the box of ghosts. Peter holds the box close to himself. "You can't smuggle something if it's yours."

Gamora arches an eyebrow. "Yes, you can. Smuggling is the illegal moving of goods. Owning the goods that you're smuggling is a separate crime."

Peter stares at her. She's seen him stare at her like that many times since they defeated Ronan. It isn't the leer he had used when she had been trying to get the orb from him. If she wanted to fool herself, she'd call it admiration.

He holds up the colourful box. "This is the last thing my mom ever gave to me."

She looks down at the box. It's...a box. "Oh."

"Yeah...so...I'm just gonna go stick this all in my room." Peter shakes the bin. The junk inside it jumps and rattles. "Maybe lie down for a bit. Get some of that doctor prescribed rest."

It's the worst lie he's told her yet. She hasn't seen Peter use the bedroom since they got here. He seems to prefer to sleep on the couch. She doesn't point it out. She can guess why he's suddenly interested in the bedroom. At least he has the common decency to attend to _that_ behind closed doors.

Gamora goes to her own room. She showers and changes. She sits quietly on her bed. She pointedly ignores any sounds coming from Peter's room.

A tiny beep from the nightstand startles her. She's snatched up a pair of pants, ready to strangle an intruder, before she realizes that it's only her datapad.

She has a message. On the datapad that only Peter, Rocket, Drax, and Nova Prime know the contact information. It's probably Peter sending her something ridiculous, pictures of his colourful box or a recording of him singing one of his Terran songs. She wants to believe it's something ridiculous and not something particularly vulgar.

She jabs her finger at the screen. The datapad lights up. The message is from Nova Prime.

Her heart rate races for a full fifteen seconds before her implants force it to calm down. She glances at the door, half expecting a full unit of corpsmen to burst through and take her back to prison.

When no one comes through the door she scoops up the datapad.

Nova Prime's address scrolls across the top of the message. The message is marked urgent. She raises her hand. She points her finger. It hovers millimetres from the screen.

She can't open this message.

If she opens it it's all gone; that possibility of forgiveness.

She drops the datapad on the bed and retreats to the common room. Peter is back on the couch, asleep and snoring. She adjusts her direction, veering towards the kitchen.

She sits down at the table. She spreads her fingers over the tabletop. She has been far more scared at various points in her life. Fighting Ronan is a good recent example. This isn't terror. She knows that well. This is something worse. This is hope.

Hope is by no means a foreign concept to her.

When she was a child hope was her parents miraculously coming to save her. When she was an adolescent hope was Thanos being assassinated by one of his many victims. When she was a young adult hope was escaping before she died. And then she knew better than to hope.

She should leave before Thanos decides to drag her back and kill everyone around her. She should leave but she hopes it won't come to that. She hopes Nova Prime has sent her official pardon and that she can continue to put her friends at risk by simply existing alongside them.

Hope is selfish.

(her chest aches. Never in all her childhood fantasizing did she ever imagine Nebula escaping with her. No wonder she had no idea Nebula was planning on betraying Thanos too. Maybe hope isn't selfish. Maybe it's only her. Maybe—)

A mug of something warm and spicy smelling is placed in front of her. She tenses, her body coiling tight, readying for a fight. She hadn't heard Drax come out of his room and presumably rummage through the kitchen to make whatever this is. How could she be so blind to her surroundings? If her father found out...

Thanos will not find out. She's escaped. The power stone is safe with the Nova Corp and she isn't going back to Thanos even if the Nova Empire decides to send her back to prison.

"You're stressed," Drax states. He sits down at the table across from her. He has his own mug. It's comically small in his hands. "This is will help you relax."

Gamora stares down at the mug in front of her. The urge to push it away, to test it for poison, is so very strong.

She picks the mug up. She can hear her father chastising her for being careless. She gulps half of it and burns her tongue. Drax won't poison her. She has to believe he won't poison her. Not everyone who shows kindness is plotting against her.

Drax smiles as she puts the mug down.

"Thank you," she says. She taps her finger against the mug. The liquid ripples inside. "Is this something your people make to relax?"

"No." Drax points to the kitchen cupboards. "It's _Xandar's Number One Fine Grade Tea._ The package said it was good for relaxation."

"Oh." Gamora looks down at her mug. She knows how to assemble over four hundred different kinds of firearms and can explain the political machinations of the last thousand years across twelve different empires. She can't tell when she's drinking mass-produced tea.

They drink _Xandar's Number One Fine Grade Tea_ in silence until the datapad Peter has claimed as his own starts to beep incessantly. She nearly throws her mug at it, thinking somehow her datapad has followed her to the kitchen.

Peter snores through the beeping.

Drax makes a disgusted noise and hurls an empty container towards the couch. It hits Peter on the head and bounces to the floor. Peter grumbles, rolls over, and goes back to snoring.

A small part of her wants to laugh at how utterly ridiculous Peter is being, insisting on sleeping on the couch when there's a whole bedroom for him. A different small part is greatly annoyed that he'd lay claim on a clearly public area. But there is a much greater part of her thoughts that's filled with disdain. How foolish is he, to sleep in the open? Where will he take cover if they're attacked? He's made himself vulnerable, helpless. It sounds like her father grading her skills.

"Quill!" Drax shouts. "Wake up and stop the annoying beeping!"

"Ugghh." Peter rolls again, this time right off the couch and onto the floor. There's a bang and some swearing then Peter stands up, holding his face. The salve he's supposed to apply twice a day to the burns on his face has smeared off. He touches his cheek gingerly and hisses.

"Are you okay?" Gamora asks. She's come to realizes in the last few days that, despite surviving holding an infinity stone, Peter is surprisingly fragile.

"I'm fine." Peter frowns and touches his cheek again. "My face just hurts a little."

Drax nods. "Yes, it hurts me too."

Peter glowers at Drax. "Thanks, a lot, Drax. Yeah, I'm completely fine. So nice you asked too."

"I didn't ask." Drax narrows his eyes at Peter. His face suddenly lights up. "Ah! A metaphor!"

Peter rolls his eyes. He drops the subject and digs through the twenty-seventh century Imperial Jutha quilts as if they're nothing more than cheap emergency blankets.

"I'm getting very good at recognizing metaphors," Drax says proudly.

Before she can explain that it wasn't a metaphor Peter yelps in surprise.

He climbs over the couch – _stepping_ on the twenty-seventh century Imperial Jutha quilts – and goes to Rocket's door. "Hey! Hey, Rocket! They found Groot's body! Well, okay, they found a bunch of it!"

Peter keeps talking but she doesn't hear him. They found Groot's remains. Peter must have asked someone to look for his body. Peter thought to ask. She didn't think to ask.

(she wants to ask if Peter asked someone to look for Nebula too. But of course he didn't. He doesn't know she has a sister. She never told him. She never talks about the only person she's cared about for years.

And she never asked anyone to look for her)

Rocket's door slams open. "You better not be joking, Quill."

It's the first time Gamora has seen Rocket in days. His clothes are ripped and stained, his fur is matted down in places, and his hands are covered in...dirt? He looks awful.

"You look awful, Rocket," Drax says.

Peter shoots a scowl at Drax then thrusts the datapad at Rocket. "No joke, man."

Rocket's eyes flick back and forth over the datapad. He slams the door closed in Peter's face. Gamora can hear Rocket racing back and forth in his room. She isn't sure the other's can.

Rocket's door swings open again after a few minutes. He marches out in one of the Nova Corp provided shirts, no attempts to clean up or comb out his fur. He snatches the datapad from Peter and keeps moving.

Peter follows him right out of the apartment, still talking.

"It is good that they found Groot's body," Drax says. He picks up her mug and fills it from the pot. "We should have a funerary feast tomorrow in his honour."

She has no idea what to do for a funerary feast, no idea if that is a standard practice. Funerals are not a custom she's familiar with. When one of her siblings had died they were quickly harvested for useful parts then what was left was discarded.

"Yes, of course," she says because she thinks that's what normal people would say.

Drax abandons his mug on the table. He goes to the fridge and evaluates the ingredients. He doesn't ask her to help but he doesn't say no when she stands by his side and puts her hand out for the knife. She can't go back to her room to stare at the datapad.

"Cut it thin," he says of the vegetable he gives her, "on the diagonal."

She doesn't know what _on the diagonal_ means. He quietly shows her how then places the vegetable on a board and gives her the knife back.

They work in silence. It's not the tense silence of waiting for her siblings to strike. This is almost companionable. Almost, because her skin is crawling, waiting for Drax to call her _the green whore_ again. Almost, because she can sense Drax watching her every move, evaluating her nonexistent cooking skills. Almost, because she has no idea what she's doing and there is a datapad with an urgent message from Nova Prime on her bed.

(Almost, because no one will ever suggest a funeral feast for her sister)

They chop and mix. Everything goes into bowls and is placed in the fridge to be cooked tomorrow.

"It is customary," Drax tells her, "to prepare the ingredients the night before while thinking of the deceased."

She thinks she understands the second meaning of his words: Drax was not the only one distracted from his thoughts of Groot.

She wants to ask _what were they like?_ What is it like to not only be apart of a family that loves you, but to start one and love them in return. Thanos has always maintained that love is a weakness to be exploited, a flaw to be replaced, but if it was so terrible why do people do it? Why do people like Drax do it? He's far from weak but he talks about his wife and daughter freely.

She doesn't ask. She doesn't know how. When she told them that she had spent her life surrounded by enemies she left out the part about how those enemies were her siblings. That she's been surrounded by family her whole life but has always been alone.

They have only just finished cleaning up when Peter and Rocket stumble back in. They smell like the floor of the bar they must have been in.

Rocket is rambling about something, the slur of his speech making him near impossible to understand. He weaves his way across the common space and disappears into his room.

Peter is singing. It's sounds a bit like Xandarian and a bit like Easik. Her translator only manages a handful of words and garbled sentences. _Glory t'colours! Sing y'all light!_ He whistles a few bars then picks up the words again. They don't make anymore sense. _There're cold plates 'round me! Call the broken chains!_

He strips his coat off and kicks his boots across the room. He's still singing and whistling as he pushes the couches together. He flops face first onto the couches and proceeds to wriggle out of his shirt and pants.

" _What are you doing?"_ Gamora takes a step back. If he thinks he can do _that_ out on the couches he is going to be sorely disappointed when she upends the whole couch then dumps ice water on him.

Peter, thankfully, stops stripping at his underwear. He whistles a bit more of the song and giggles. "Rav'ger tr'tion." He waves his hand, beckoning them closer. He clears his throat, what comes out is recognizable as Xandarian. "Don't— y'don't...go 'lone affer. _After_ a battle. Funeral. Airlock, ain't yer friend."

Rocket slams his bedroom door open. He teeters and sways as he carries a potted plant over to the couch. He can't quite climb up. Drax grabs him by the back of his shirt and lifts him up.

Rocket wobbles across the couch cushions and curls up on Peter's back. He wraps around the pot, one hand clutched protectively around the plant.

Drax takes one of the twenty-seventh century Imperial Jutha quilts off the back of the couch and gently places it over Rocket and Peter. He stares down at them for a moment. He takes the second quilt and wraps it around his own shoulders. He sits down on the couch. He holds the blanket open for Gamora.

"Quill is an idiot," Drax proclaims. "But, he is right. One shouldn't be alone after a great battle or before a funeral."

It's ridiculous. And disgusting. Peter and Rocket smell awful. She should say no. Firmly and emphatically. It is one thing to die among friends, another to sleep in their sweat and the general filth they've tracked in from a bar.

Her feet move her across the room. She doesn't want to be alone anymore.

She hopes she won't have to be alone anymore.

She hopes the message from Nova Prime is her official pardon. She hopes that she can stay with this booze smelling mess of questionable individuals who have caused her nothing but trouble since she met each of them.

Hope is a strange thing.

She wedges herself between Drax's side and Peter's legs. She wraps the other half of the blanket around herself. Drax is uncomfortably warm against her, Peter's legs are sweaty, and Rocket's fur is sticky.

Nebula would be disgusted with her. She wishes she were here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I find this brief liminal Gamora super hard to get a handle on.
> 
> As far as I can tell Gamora in vol 1 never actually says hey, did you know that angry blue space chick is my sister? There's one scene where _maybe_ you could argue that they could _possibly_ be having a family spat over an open radio channel that the others might have overheard. But there's never any follow up from that so I took that to mean Nebula's I hated you the least speech was private.
> 
> Title is from Paul Anka's Lonely Boy (but the 1959 recording. Not the weird 70s version he did later on)


	5. Caring and providing for family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two small black eyes look up at him. They are immediately familiar.

Drax wakes to a tickling sensation at the tip of his nose. At first he thinks it is merely Quill's obnoxiously loud breathing that's bothering him, so he does the reasonable thing and elbows Quill in the back of his knee to make him stop.

"Uggrhh." Quill twists his legs. There is incomprehensible muttering from the far end of the couch. "Kra'in, g'way."

That is when he realizes that it can not possibly be Quill's obnoxiously loud breathing. Not unless Terrans breathe through their legs.

He cracks his eyes open. The others have shifted across the couch through the night. Quill's legs are now over his lap. Gamora is wedged against the back of the couch with her legs across Quill's back. Rocket has somehow managed to sprawl across all three of them despite his very small stature. He still clutches the potted plant.

It is Rocket's potted plant that is currently reaching up and tickling his nose. He pushes the leaf away from him. It reaches back for his nose. This time one small leaf folds into a point and pokes itself into his nose.

Drax snorts the leaf from his nose. The leaf feels around his face then resumes its attempt to pick his nose. It is very unusual behaviour for a plant. Plants on his home world range from beneficial food crops and medicine to plants so poisonous merely brushing against them could leave a person paralyzed. None of the plants on his home world are known for picking people's noses.

His chest aches, not with the rage he's become accustom to after so many years. No, this is the melancholic ache of missing loved ones. It is much worse.

Kamaria would have found nose-picking plants uproariously hilarious. He has no doubt that the discovery would have set back Hovat's endeavours to stop Karmaria from picking her nose by months at least.

He swats the leaf away from his nose when it pushes further in. Two small black eyes look up at him. They are immediately familiar.

He wakes the others.

"Ow! What the hell, dude?"

"Nooo. Whhhy?"

"Huh?"

"Look!" Drax points at the tiny Groot as it shoves its leafy hand further into his nose. "Rocket! Your plant is a tiny Groot!"

The plant peeps, much like a baby bird.

"Uh...I can explain," Rocket says. He gently pulls the tiny plant's leafy hand out of Drax's nose. The plant peeps again and reaches back. Rocket pushes its hand away. "Don't pick other people's noses. That's gross."

"Oh my god." Quill wriggles out from under the others, sending them tumbling off him as he flops onto the floor. Drax catches the plant before it falls to the floor with Quill. Quill sits up and stares, wide-eyed, at the tiny plant. "Rocket. Rocket, did you just— give birth on my back!?"

Rocket scrambles upright and smacks Quill on the head. "Moron. No, I didn't _give birth_ on your back. Do I look like a plant?" He grabs the pot from Drax and clutches it close to his chest. "You okay, Groot?"

Quill rubs his head and whines, "Why is everyone always hitting me? What did I ever do to you?"

"You led us into danger," Drax explains, "multiple times. And with terrible plans. Also, you breathe obnoxiously loud. It's worse when you sleep. It's very annoying."

Quill stares at him. "Do you, like, keep a list or something? I swear, every chance you get—"

The plant reaches out and taps Quill on the head. It peeps in delight.

Drax laughs. The tiny Groot has fantastic comedic timing!

"How did this happen?" Gamora asks. She leans forward and hesitantly reaches a hand out to the plant. It presses a leaf against her finger tip.

"Yeah." Quill waves his hand at the plant. "How exactly is there a mini Groot?"

"Plants reproduce by many different means. Some require pollination. Others can produce offspring through rooting or budding. There are other methods but those are the most common," Drax explains to them. However, he directs his words to Quill, who they've all established is lacking in intelligence, since it is likely causing Gamora more undue stress to find another area of life her father has not prepared her for.

He will have to tell her that it is not her fault that her father is awful and has not prepared her for life. He will offer to teach her the things and skills she's lacking as an adult.

His chest aches once again, it has been so _long_ since he last taught anyone anything important.

It is suddenly very quiet. Everyone is staring at him.

"What?"

"Thanks for the biology lesson," Quill says. He picks himself up off the floor and sits down on the couch between Rocket and Gamora.

"You're welcome." Perhaps he'll include Quill in his lessons about adult responsibilities.

The plant peeps. It reaches out to tap Quill on the head again.

"Rocket?" Gamora says.

Rocket hugs the plant's pot to his chest. "So, I, uh, I got drunk a couple nights back and kind of...planted the sticks I had of Groot." He scratches at his cheek where something greyish and sticky looking is stuck in his fur. "Look, I didn't know this would happen." He juts his snout towards the plant. "That he'd be a– a tiny person, and not, ya know, a dumb plant."

Gamora's eyes widen. "You– you got _drunk_ and..." She points vigorously at the tiny Groot.

"Planted a baby," Drax finishes helpfully.

" _You got drunk and planted a baby,"_ Gamora repeats the words, clearly having trouble believing them.

They will definitely have to discuss reproduction methods and the many ways people find themselves managing an unplanned pregnancy.

It is common knowledge from a young age among his own people – Kamaria understood the fundamentals of reproduction by the time she was three – but he's found that many other peoples have peculiar phobias regarding reproduction. Gamora's father must have had particularly absurd notions of propriety if she's reached adulthood and still doesn't understand.

Gamora chops her hand through the air. " _That's_ your explanation?"

"I didn't say it was a good one," Rocket says.

"Wow." Quill looks astonished by the realities of reproduction. "That is a whole new variation on got drunk, now I got a kid."

Gamora and Rocket both roll their eyes. Rocket shimmies off the couch. He takes the plant to the kitchen sink and waters it then takes it to the large window at the end of the common room. He turns back to the rest of them. His fur puffs up in a threat display. Drax doubts he's purposefully threatening them, but rather, feels threatened. It's a common prey response on many worlds.

"So, what? I..." He looks over his shoulder at the plant in the window. It is currently pressing its leaves against the glass and peeping. "I planted a new Groot. Big deal."

"Well, yeah, it's a big deal!" Quill flails off the couch. "What are we supposed to do with– with– a tiny person Groot?"

"Baby," Drax interjects. How are his new friends such idiots?

"Baby," Quill repeats. His already freakishly pale skin pales even more. "What are we supposed to do with _a baby_. Dude, babies...need stuff. And you gotta...do things for them."

Quill's lack of knowledge is truly astounding.

"What do you mean _we?"_ Rocket says. He jerks his thumb at his chest. "I planted him. He's my problem." He waves his hand at Quill. "And seriously, put some clothes on. I don't need you trying to give me life advice in your underwear."

"What do you mean, _what do I mean we?"_ Quill says, ignoring Rocket's request to put clothes on. He looks around at the three of them, as if they have all just announced their intentions to dismember him. He flinches and sucks in a short breath. "I mean...I thought..."

"Thought _what?"_ Rocket demands. He sounds angrier than usual.

Quill's body turns a fascinating shade of red. He doesn't appear to be in physical distress, so it must be normal for Terrans to change colours. Perhaps it's a threat display. On his home planet animals with bright red markings are often poisonous.

"Thought, we were gonna..." Quill looks down at his hands and picks at the filthy bandages. "Ya know, stick together...be..." His face turns even redder. "...Guardians of the Galaxy."

Rocket leans away from Quill and glances towards the exit. Gamora has slipped off the couch and is edging towards the bedroom she has claimed as her own. Quill continues to be red.

No one is paying any attention to Groot. It is painfully obvious none of his new friends have ever taken care of a child. Or themselves.

Drax stands and picks up the nearest end table. He brings it to the window and slides it against the sill just as Groot manages to push himself off. The pot lands with a thump as it drops harmlessly onto the table. Groot peeps in distress. It is only the distress of a baby learning something new. The height difference between table and windowsill is less than half his hand's thickness.

"I assure you, you're fine. I have saved you from a much greater fall," Drax gently tells Groot, as he had told Kamaria so many times before. "You do not understand height yet, but this is a good way to learn without endangering yourself."

Groot peeps and reaches towards the window. Drax moves the pot back up. Groot immediately begins to push himself off the ledge again.

"Hey!" Rocket jumps towards Groot. "Don't let him keep falling!"

"He's fine." Drax puts his hand on Rocket's shoulder to reassure him, without commenting on the unpleasant stickiness of his fur. "Watch."

Groot pushes himself off the ledge again. He peeps in distress but reaches for the window again. Drax puts his pot back onto the ledge. They repeat this three more times before Groot stops pushing himself off the windowsill.

Instead, Groot peeps and presses his leaves against the window for a few moments then yawns and falls asleep. It is entirely understandable, pushing and falling is a vigorous workout for any baby.

When Kamaria was that small she would often kick and grab and push until exhausting herself. She would sleep anywhere after that; curled up in his or Hovat's arms or sprawled on the floor.

Gamora and Quill gather around beside them. It's very pleasing symmetry. Their friend Groot had surrounded them to protect them from danger. Now they surround this smaller more pathetic Groot.

"Is he okay?" Gamora whispers.

"Yeah," Rocket whispers back. "He sleeps for about twenty hours every day. That's normal from what I could find about Flora colossi."

"If you whisper he'll never stay asleep as he grows older," Drax does not whisper. "We should continue about our day as we normally would."

Groot makes a sleepy peep but doesn't wake up.

They will need to make some alterations to the feast tonight. They will be celebrating the old Groot and the new Groot. He goes to the kitchen to start preparing. Gamora hesitates, she looks between him and the others, before following him to the kitchen.

Drax takes out the cutting board and a knife. He sets them down near Gamora. If she wants to help he will gladly instruct her again. She is not an entirely hopeless culinary student.

"So, uh, you mean that?" Rocket asks Quill. "The stuff about, sticking together?"

Gamora freezes as she reaches for the knife.

"Well, yeah," Quill says. "We can't let a cool team name like Guardians of the Galaxy go to waste."

Gamora breathes. She picks up the knife.

"It is a good name," Drax calls over his shoulder.

"See?" Quill says. "I'm not the only one who thinks it's a great team name."

"Yeah, that's not exactly a ringing endorsement in my books," says Rocket.

The two of them bicker back and forth. He mostly stops listening, letting it fade into background noise.

_("What? And you think you can come up with a better one?"_

_"No, I think a team name is dumb."_

_"It's not dumb. It's cool."_

_"Right, like your cool outlaw name."_

_"Exactly."_

_"Hate to break it to you, Quill, but outlaw names are kinda dumb too.")_

Drax rolls a bundle of leafy greens into a tube and passes it to Gamora. "Slice across the tube to make ribbons."

Gamora squints at the greens. She holds one side down and raises the knife. She presses it down but doesn't cut. She glances over at him. Drax nods. Gamora slices through the greens confidently. She is a very good student.

Kamaria was a very good student too.

He takes out several pans and a pot. They'll need to start cooking some of the dishes very soon if they're to be ready for tonight.

There is a clattering noise behind him. It's Rocket climbing onto the table. He sits on the edge. Quill comes over and cautiously leans against the table, close to Rocket but out of striking distance. He touches the bandage on his arm where Rocket had scratched him.

Despite his _profuse_ complaining about it over the last few days Quill does not complain to Rocket about the gouges in his arm as he had repeatedly said he would.

"So, uh, what're you doing?" Rocket asks.

"We're preparing a funerary feast," Drax says.

"For Groot," Gamora adds.

He goes to the refrigerator and stares at its contents. Most of the dishes they prepared last night are generic foods for celebrations. They won't need to add much to make the celebration suitable for a birth too. He selects a few things that seem close approximations of food from his home world. "And a welcoming feast. Since there is a new Groot to welcome."

"Oh..." Rocket swipes a hand over his ear. "That's...uh..."

Quill lurches off the table. "Oh, man, we gotta make–" Quill says something that doesn't make any sense. "It's basically _everyone's_ comfort food. I swear fat and sugar is universal."

Quill begins riffling though the cupboards and pulling out boxes and jars. He grabs a bowl and pours things in without any concern for measuring.

"You're all weirdos," Rocket says, as he climbs down to the floor. He pushes a chair over to the counter and climbs up onto the chair. "Give me something to do."

Drax passes him a spoon and points at the pot on the stove. "Stir frequently or it will burn."

They cook in a kitchen too small for the four of them. They bump into one another and always need what the other person is currently using. Rocket and Gamora have very little experience doing anything with food except eating it. Quill, surprisingly, considering his many other inadequacies, is proficient in the kitchen.

It's pleasant and terrible.

He instructs Gamora and Rocket as he would have Kamaria. He discusses ingredients with Quill as he would have with Hovat.

He had thought that avenging them would release the grief that he has lived with for so long. Killing Ronan has done little to help. There is the satisfaction in knowing that Ronan will never kill another, but it is as the old people in his village had said it would be: not enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretty sure that Drax's version of events for vol 1 are: What a Glorious Battle! Now I will adopt this group of idiots as family.
> 
>  
> 
> The title is from Nobody Knows His Name because I had nothing better to slap on there. However, my theme song for this while writing was If I Should Ever Love Again by The Magic Bubble. Which, I would have used in the chapter title but it didn't seem very fitting for a Drax title.


	6. friends are keeping me happy (they know what I need)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is the best time in all of history!

In the beginning there was hunger. And then came light, soil, and water.

Except there was no understanding in the beginning. No thoughts. No words.

So, in the beginning there was aching. And then came not aching.

A long time of not aching happens. Then a ticklish thing grows out the top and then a new sensation happens that makes a lot of new kind of aching happen. It's something odd, that happens everywhere at once. It stops and starts. Slowly the new sensation doesn't make any more aching happen.

It takes a very long time to understand the new sensation: it's movement. Movement means different places where the light will come at different angles.

Slowly slowly slowly another new thing happens (there have been a lot of new things). The little ticklish things feel vibrations in the air. When there are a lot of them all at once the aching comes back. When there is only one or two kinds of vibration it's pleasant. It is the best time in all of history!

No! No! There are things in the light! _This_ is the best time in all of history!

Oh! No! _This!_ This is the best time in all of history! There are TWO ticklish things and they can be used to _touch!!!!_

Then there is lots of movement and lots of vibrations and lots of touching. It's very exciting.

Everything is different again. There are bigger places. More vibrations. And— oh! The vibrations _mean_ things.

There is: _noyouredoingitwrong!_ And: _itsnotlikeiplannedthis!_ And: _youtryingtokillinghimagainmoron?_

All of which mean that there will soon be plenty of warm light and cool water.

There are more things in the light. The things that are in the light are good things. They bring water and make sure the light is good. They are the best things in all of history!

They are called: _ipromiseitllbebetterthistime_ and _nowthisonewasherfavourite_ and _whenmydaughterwasyourage_ and _idontknowwhatimdoing._

A wiggly thing grows out one side.

Another one grows out the other.

The wiggly things can touch too! They can _pick things up!_ This is the best time in history that has ever happened!

The wiggly things wiggle for a very long time.

The wiggly things touch the best things. Then all four of the best things ever make vibrations. And then! And then!

"i am groot!"

The vibrations can happen inside and come out and vibrate at the best things!

"I am groot! I Am Groot! I AM GROOT!"

The best things all vibrate. There is a lot of touching of the wiggly things and then lots of water and light.

"I AM GROOT!"

It is the best time in all of history!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it weird that I can think of four separate songs off the top of my head from the 70s that feature trees?
> 
> Anyway, baby Groot, who is just super excited about his very limited experiences of the world. 
> 
> Also, I am high key disappointed we never got to see the 12 to 24 month time period of baby Groot, because I would have very much liked to see the guardians suffer through the whole 'I understand complex ideas but can't explain myself so I'm going to throw this entire plate of food everywhere and scream Noooooo! for the next hour'.
> 
> I have a second Groot pov chapter planned for later, in case you were hoping for more complex toddler thoughts.
> 
> The title comes from Bruce Cockburn's Musical Friends which has nothing to do about trees.


	7. Vignettes from the capital

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "...you have a...a baby now?"

I.

The clock ticks over. She's officially been awake for three days. Irani turns off the screens that surround her. She sits down and closes her eyes.

This is far from the worst battle she's witnessed. She was a pilot in Stavan system when the Kree firebombed Soarra. She had walked through the ashes of cities and seen a planet of billions reduced to just a few hundred survivors.

She understands in a way that few can what Ronan had planned on doing. She understands that the sacrifices made were necessary.

It does not make recording over a thousand notifications of death any easier.

"Nova Prime?"

Her eyes snap open. She doesn't allow herself to flinch in surprise. She has to maintain appearances for everyone's sake. They need to get through this. They need Nova Prime. Not Corpsman Rael.

She spreads her hand out, inviting her assistant to continue.

"I have our guest list drawn up." Liruy Vail taps her datapad. A moment later Irani's datapad beeps.

The guest list. It's another thing she understands but loathes. The ceremony will be part state funeral and part political posturing. They need to publicly grieve but they also need to show a strong sense of resilience to the Kree.

Liruy lingers in her office.

"Is there anything else?" Irani asks. She wants desperately for the answer to be no. She wants to go home, strip the uniform off, and stand in a searing hot shower for the rest of the night.

"No. It's not—" Liruy looks down at her datapad. "I wanted to be a pilot. I didn't have the reaction time. I'm— I'm alive because I didn't have the reaction time."

Corpsman Rael bubbles to the surface. She wants to tell Liruy to get out. To solve her problems the way they use to when she was coming up the ranks: drinking and sex

Irani takes a deep breath. She doesn't want to do this. She doesn't want to help everyone around her process their survivor's guilt when she's sent so many to their deaths.

"This was not your fault," she tells her. Because she's Nova Prime now. Not a fighter pilot with back pay to burn and half her squadron gone. "Call your family. Talk to them. Be thankful that you're all alive and well."

"Yes, Nova Prime." Liruy gives her a shaky salute and _leaves._

Irani reaches under her desk and hits the lock button. There are subtle _snicks!_ throughout her office. She takes a moment to sit and do absolutely nothing then gathers her things undisturbed and leaves through her private entrance.

She is going home. She isn't taking anymore calls. She is showering. _And._ _going. to. sleep._

 

 

II.

"Don't stare at Drax. Or Gamora. Or— don't stare at any of them," Dr. Ikkip says yet again. He's gone through his list of 'advice' multiple times on the way over.

"Don't stare," Dr. Shevri says. She taps her diagnostics kit. "Got it."

"And be careful of what you say. It's a miracle that they got him to come out," Dr. Ikkip continues. "We don't want to drive him off."

Dr. Lopparinia nods along. She understands why Dr. Ikkip and Dr. Shevri are here. Dr. Ikkip has been their attending doctor from the start and specializes in neural cybernetics. Dr. Shevri is the best orthopedic surgeon that specialize in cybernetics in the city.

She's a general pediatrician. She's got no idea why she's here but it wasn't as if she was going to say no to a direct request from Nova Prime herself.

The only thing she knows is that the people who saved her planet requested an orthopedic cybernetics specialist and a pediatrician.

"And be prepared for strange requests, disregard for medical advice, and self treatment," Dr. Ikkip says as the elevator comes to a stop.

"So, expect a patient," Dr. Shevri laughs.

Dr. Ikkip doesn't laugh.

They walk down a hall decorated with artwork that should be behind three layers of blast-proof glass. There isn't even a rope and a placard suggesting she not get too close to the art. She could actually reach out and _touch_ artwork by some of the most famous painters of the last two centuries.

If nothing else, that is what makes it clear that she's actually _inside_ of one of the most secretive places on the planet. Asgardian royalty and Kree diplomats have walked these same halls.

And maybe touched _three old women discussing politics_ by Garch Konuif.

They stop in front of a door guarded by just two corpsmen.

"We've been requested," Dr. Ikkip says. He passes over a badge for the corpsmen to scan and motions for them to do the same. He waves at each of them as they pass their badges over. "Dr. Shevri and Dr. Lopparinia."

The corpsmen scan their badges and nod. They step aside. The door opens.

A tiny disappointed noise escapes her. She had expected to walk into a luxurious apartment but instead they're in a small bare anteroom.

Dr. Shevri smiles at her knowingly. "This is where foreign dignitaries would station their own guards."

The door closes behind them. The room is unnaturally quiet. She wonders how many security measures prevent eavesdropping in this room alone.

Dr. Ikkip pushes the call button. They do not wait long.

The door opens. Strange music blasts from the apartment as people shout over it. Dr. Ikkip doesn't seem concerned.

"I AM GROOT! I AM GROOT!"

"GROOT! STOP YELLING!

"I AM GROOT!"

A tall man dressed in a grey tunic and red leather pants pokes his head out the door.

"DID I GET A PILOT'S LICENSE?"

"I AM GROOT!"

The man turns and shouts back into the apartment. "WHY WOULD THEY GIVE YOU A PILOT'S LICENSE? YOU CAN'T EVEN MAKE A CALL ON YOUR OWN!"

"I AM GROOT!"

"THEY GAVE ONE TO YOU AND GAMORA!"

"I AM GROOT!"

"THAT'S BECAUSE WE'RE PILOTS!" the man shouts. "AND TURN THE MUSIC DOWN! THEY'RE HERE!"

The music suddenly cuts out. The shouting does not stop.

"I AM GROOT! I AM GROOT!"

"GROOT! STOP YELLING!"

"HE IS EXERCISING HIS LUNGS! SO THAT ONE DAY HE MAY HAVE A MIGHTY BATTLE CRY! "

The man turns back to them. He smiles at Dr. Ikkip. "Hey! Sorry, we're just celebrating. Gamora and Drax are officially upstanding citizens and Groot said his first words."

"I AM GROOT!"

"Congratulations," Dr. Ikkip says politely. He frowns. "Ah...who is Groot? I thought his name is Rocket."

"I AM GROOT!"

The man laughs and shakes his head. "That's Groot." He jerks his thumb behind him then opens the door wider to let them in. "We kinda had a baby."

 

 

III.

Rhomann doesn't have any complaints about being a corpsman. He's been at it for years with no ambition for higher ranks. He does his patrols. He gives out parking tickets and shepherds lost tourists back to their hotels.

And arrest a certain barely old enough to drink Ravager for shoplifting.

The paperwork is always easy. He never has to stay late. It means he can pick up his daughter from school and go home. It means work doesn't haunt him while he's with his family.

His daughter hasn't been to school in a week and his work haunts him everywhere he goes.

He stares down at the actual _printed_ certificate of promotion and the new patch. He runs his thumb over the extra line. They made him a denarian because of his _'heroic contributions'_. He doesn't deserve it. Never wanted it.

They must be scraping the bottom of the barrel if they're promoting him. He doesn't know the exact number yet but he knows the Corps on Xandar have taken their biggest hit in a few hundred years.

"Rhomann, did you reply to this already?" Karman-Kan calls out from the other room.

"Reply to what?" He leaves the patch on their dresser and joins his wife – alive, safe, well – in the living room.

He automatically glances over to the couch where Duranna is sleeping. She hasn't been able to sleep in her room, even with the blackout panel activated. He can't blame her for not wanting to be anywhere near a window that looks out over the city.

"Reply to what?" he repeats.

"The memorial service." His wife motions at the family's datapad. "And the dinner afterwards."

He takes the datapad and glances over the information. It is not lost on him that the invitation is made out to _Denarian_ Rhomann Dey and Karman-Kan Hirondin and that his wife has not commented on the promotion.

"I should probably go," Rhomann says. "...do you...want to?"

Karman-Kan looks at their daughter. Duranna is still fast asleep while they discuss if they're going to, what's probably going to be, a boring politically motivated farce.

His breath catches in his throat. It's all too much. He's not a denarian, he's not a hero. He's just the guy who arrested a dumb kid who was shoplifting.

 

 

IV.

People think it's odd when she reports numbers during a tragedy. As if babies wait for the universe to settle down for a moment before causing their own interruptions.

The end of day report isn't remarkable. A few hundred more births registered. She scans down to the reports that were flagged for review.

Birth certificates are a rather simple process. The AI handles most of them without problem. But sometimes there's too many errors or inconsistencies. Most of the time it's a missed piece of information. Occasionally it's the result of a doctor who mixed up the lines of information.

Very rarely is one marked for fraud.

She opens the file and looks over the information that's been flagged. She scoffs. It's a very poor-in-taste joke. Probably someone in administration who thinks they're just the height of humour. She junks the file.

The request is resubmitted the next day. She junks that one too and puts in a complaint with HR.

The day after she gets a call from Nova Prime's assistant who transfers the call to _Nova Prime._ She is politely asked to process the request.

She stares at the registration of birth.

 

Name: Groot

Date of Birth: 04-16-87463

Place of Birth: Nova City

Parent 1: Rocket

Parent 2: Gamora

Parent 3: Drax the Destroyer!

Parent 4: Peter Quill

 

 

V.

"I AM GROOOOT! I AM GROOOOOT!"

"IT'S OKAY! THAT'S HIS HAPPY SCREAMING! HE'S—"

Niry sighs and stops the recording. None of it will be usable. Xe had hoped beyond reason for at least _one_ soundbite that xe could use. But all xe has is four hours of shouting over a screaming baby. The interview will have to be transcribed.

Xe heaves another sigh. This was supposed to be a once in lifetime career opportunity. Yet, somehow xe feels as if someone is playing a nasty joke on xir. Xe can't quite believe that the people xe had spent the last four hours with were the same group of people whole held an infinity stone and saved Xandar.

They were supposed to be highly skilled warriors.

They had broken two camera drones and xir personal light rig _by accident._

"Oh blessed Jola! Is that them?"

"I can't believe you got to meet them!"

Two of xir co-workers cram into xir office. Xe's quick to wrap xir tail around xir leg. They never remember to watch for tails.

Xe sifts through group pictures to use while xir co-workers fawn over the close ups on xir other screens. Xe still doesn't quite understand what makes one fur-less person attractive over another. They all look like they have mange to xir.

"Wow. He's so..." Zaphie sighs and trails her fingers over the image, smudging the screen. "Look at his hands. The things I'd let him do..."

"I'd heard Peter Quill will try to charm anyone but with looks like that..." Dath sighs too. "He wouldn't even have to try."

Niry looks over at the picture they've stopped on. "That's not Peter Quill," xe says. Xe was surprised too. "That's Drax." Xe points to the picture on the screen in front of xir; to the man at the end of the couch dressed in red from head to toe. " _That's_ Peter Quill."

Zaphie and Dath both reel back. They look as though xe's just tossed a dead fish at them.

"Really? The Krylorian?" Zaphie squints. "Or is he Xandarian? I can never tell."

Dath leans in to look closer. "I heard he's a Ravager."

"That's, like, an ethnicity," Zaphie says. "Not a species."

"He is a Ravager but he's from Terra," Niry says. "So he's Terran."

"Oh, right, that new station orbiting, uh..." Zaphie trails off, distracted by the picture on the next screen. It's of Gamora causally holding her sword across her lap. She drags her fingers over Gamora's image, and mutters under her breath, _she looks like she'd murder me, blessed Jola, that is so hot._

"It's not a station. Terra is a planet. Apparently it's in the Nine Realms," Niry says, pushing Zaphie out of xir personal space. Xe puts the pictures onto the screens xe uses for interviews. If xir co-workers want to lust after xir subjects they don't need to do it on top of xir. "I think he's actually Midgardian."

"Huh," Zaphie says. She reaches out and begins scrolling through pictures of Drax. "So what about him?"

"Is he charming?" Dath asks.

Niry draws a deep breath. Xe wouldn't call any of them charming honestly. Xir interview had felt like an ordeal. "Well, I'm told he's good with babies."

Zaphie and Dath both show their teeth. Niry's skin crawls, sending xir fur rippling. Xe knows it's a happy response for Zaphie and Dath but it's still just so _creepy_ even after all these years.

They both squeal with delight. "Awww! He's good with babies!"

Niry snorts. They like babies, do they? Xe brings up the recording and hits play.

"I AM GROOOOOT! I AM GROOOOOT!"

 

 

VI.

"What do you mean, there aren't anymore in stock?" The corpsman points at the floor model. "There's one right there."

"That's the floor model," Vim tells him. Again. "We don't actually keep our stock on location. We're a display room only."

"I need it," the corpsman insists. "How much do you want for the floor model?"

"I'm sorry, but the floor model is not for sale. You'll have to come back when they're in stock." Vim is fast losing patience. He would like nothing more than to tell this puffed up corpsman to shove it. That the Corps weren't the only ones to lose people. And that he'd just have to wait until they rebuilt their manufacturing and distribution centre and hire new employees to run it since everyone who worked there is _dead_.

"But I need it!" The corpsman's eyes fill with tears.

Oh, great. A crier. He's going to get some made up sob story now.

"We don't have any in stock," he repeats. The corpsman can cause as much of a scene as they want. As long as he sticks to the script he isn't going to get fired.

"You don't understand," the corpsman sobs. "I've been a corpsman for _two days_ and they sent me out to restock a ship but then it turned out to be _Their_ ship and one of them likes fruit and I don't even know how they know that but how am I supposed to go back to _Nova Prime_ and tell her I can't get a fruit bowl for the deadliest woman in the galaxy?"

Vim blinks dumbly. That was not exactly the made up sob story he was expecting.

"What?"

"One of them doesn't wear shirts," the corpsman sniffles. "And I couldn't find any pants from the brand they listed. And I don't know where to find extra extra small work overalls. And there aren't any magnetic tape readers _anywhere."_

Vim puts it all together. "Um...so, I think your, uh, fellow corpsmen are hazing you."

The corpsman looks ready to start crying again.

 

 

VII.

Karman-Kan can not help but stare at the group of people that walk up to Rhomann. She's seen the news feeds. She knows who they are. She is still not prepared for it.

"Mom, look!" Duranna's eyes are huge. She tugs at her hand and points. " _Look!"_

Karman-Kan gently puts her daughter's hand down. Pointing can be contentious in mixed species groups. "I know. I see. But don't point, we don't know them."

"Can we go meet them?" Duranna pleads.

The memorial service had been very sombre. Definitely not the place for excited children to meet heroes. The dinner is...far less sombre. Karman-Kan glances over at Rhomann. He's not putting on his courtroom persona. It's probably not an official meeting. But still...

One of _Them_ notices her daughter staring. It makes Rhomann look their way. He waves them over.

"Yes!" Duranna cheers. She darts away before she can even think to stop her, dodging between government officials and celebrities as if they're friends at the schoolyard.

Karman-Kan doesn't waste time being upset about her daughter's exuberance. She's excited to meet them too.

She catches up to Duranna just as she's leaping into Rhomann's arms.

"This little lady is Duranna Dey-Hirondin," Rhomann says proudly. He nods to Karman-Kan, his arms otherwise occupied. "And this is my wife, Karman-Kan."

There is a round of introductions from the others, though none are needed. Their names have been everywhere for weeks.

There is a tiny peep and then a high pitched, "I am groot!"

Karman-Kan's eyes flick down to a potted plant that Rocket is holding. A talking potted plant. She stifles the frantic giggle that wants to slip out. The capital city of the whole empire is a smoking pile of rubble and there is a talking potted plant in front of her.

"Thank you, Groot, for not shouting," Gamora says. She reaches down and carefully strokes the top of the potted plant.

Karman-Kan tries not to let her composure slip. These are the people who saved the planet. It's only a talking plant being affectionately pet by a person who's reputation for murder precedes her.

"Uh..." Rhomann stares down at the plant. At least she's not alone in trying to process talking potted plants.

"Oh, right! You only met big Groot!" Peter says. He motions down at the little plant. "This is, uh...new Groot."

" _Baby_ Groot," Drax says. "He is fifteen days old."

Rhomann looks between the four of them. "...you have a...a baby now?"

"Yes." Drax reaches down.

Instead of passing the potted plant up to Drax, Rocket climbs up Drax's arm. Rocket holds the potted plant out towards them. "Wave, Groot."

The potted plant wriggles and peeps. "I am groot."

Rocket shrugs. "Good enough." He jumps down from Drax. "I'm gonna go see if they brought out any more of those little round flatbread things with the purple stuff on top." He trots off with the little plant.

Karman-Kan stares after him. These are the people who saved their planet.

"Can I see your sword?" Duranna asks.

Karman-Kan shoots a quick look at Rhomann. Should they be worried about their daughter asking a daughter of Thanos questions about swords? Rhomann subtly shakes his head.

"I don't have it with me at the moment," Gamora says. She smiles softly.

"Oh," Duranna says, disappointed in the way only seven year olds can be.

"Hey, she might not have her sword but watch this!" Peter takes a little trinket out of his pocket and makes a show of bouncing it across his fingers before seemingly making it disappear. "Oh, hey where'd it go? Hmm..." He crouches down and pulls it out from behind Duranna's ear. "Found it!"

"Neat! Can you do it again?" Duranna asks.

"Sure!" He starts the routine again.

Gamora frowns at the object. "Peter, is that from the conference room?"

"Uhh...possibly?" Peter flicks his hand. The object bounces off his knuckles then disappears. "Oh, hey, where'd it go?"

"The conference room?"Gamora suggests dryly.

"Yeah, maybe I should go look for it in there," Peter says. He waves and doesn't excuse himself so much as dash for the exit.

"It was nice to meet you," Gamora says then strides after him.

It leaves them standing awkwardly in front of Drax who is staring at the three of them in silence. She glances at Rhomann. He shrugs and subtly spreads his hand. She sighs.

"So..." She searches for some neutral topic. "How long have you been together?"

"Not long. We met recently in prison," Drax says. He pauses long enough that Karman-Kan thinks that's all he's willing to share but then he proceeds to tell a story that heavily features Peter Quill's reputation for having _'lain with an A'askavariian.'_

Rhomann chokes and covers Duranna's ears.

"Oh..." She can feel her face turning bright pink. "That's...it's great that you're reintegrating as a family."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I. I made up Nova Prime's history as a corpsman/pilot because why not? And I made up her assistant's name (same one from the first chapter) since as far as I can tell she never got a name in vol 1.
> 
> II. I feel so bad for this made up pediatrician having to deal with the Guardians and their questionable parenting skills.
> 
> III. Apparently in the comics Dey's wife and kid are Karman-Kan and Duranna so I went with that. I made up Karman-Kan's last name however because I'm not real interested in aliens emulating western naming conventions. 
> 
> IV. I have spent many hours thinking about Groot having a birth certificate. Because that's a thing that civilizations do. I can't see the Nova Corps just sending them off without being like, hey, wait a minute babies need birth certificates and records of vaccination and stuff. Also, Drax would totally spell his name with an exclamation mark.
> 
> V. I am strangely fond of my alien journalists. And the whole "that's his happy scream", that is straight up what my own little spawn did for about two months. It was both hilarious and awful. We bought construction grade earmuffs. 
> 
> VI. I have spent a ridiculous amount of time wondering who bought the fruit bowl in vol 2? Did Nova Corps go out and specifically get that one when rebuilding the ship? Was it a gift? Did one of the guardians buy it? Also, the vol 2 shot of them in their kitchen always makes me laugh because the square metal bowl thing on the table is actually a vegetable grill basket. I have the same one.
> 
> VII. Headcanon time: everyone who meets the guardians and talks to Drax comes away with the impression that they're all in a polyamorous relationship together. Which is not entirely wrong, it's just complicated.


	8. Parenting Quartet in Four Parts: Gamora

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She smiles back at the little person that doesn't know any better than to completely trust that she won't drop him.

The hospital waiting room is nothing like any of the places she's waited for surgery. The floor to ceiling windows overlook a lush garden and fill the space with sunlight. The six person team of corpsmen looming across from them are there for _their protection._ There are plush chairs, gentle music, and several options for snacks made freely available. 

Maybe this is the public face they present and the operating room is something more familiar.

Would it be strange to ask Rocket what the operating room was like when his surgery is over? She would never ask one of her siblings about a surgery, they would use her curiosity against her. But friends ask questions. They bond over shared experiences. And this is the only shared experience she and Rocket have as far as she knows.

Gamora glances at Rocket. He's muttering to himself as he fills out medical history and consent forms. He's currently listing past doctors and other _professionals_ who have worked on him.

The list is long and full of question marks and annotations. She doesn't intentionally read it. Her training and implants make it reflexive. One quick visual sweep of the datapad and the legend he's made at the bottom of the form is filed away in her memory: a star for those confirmed by lab reports, a triangle for general subject pool reports, a circle for market research.

She had assumed Rocket _chose_ not to divulge much detail about his past before Groot. Now she wonders, how much does he actually know? How much of his history is something he's reconstructed from lab reports? How long has Rocket been Rocket? How many years was he...whatever he was before?

"Know most of yours?"

She freezes. A lump of fear lodges in her throat. She's been caught assessing a mark. She'll need improvement. Her father—

It takes her a conscious effort to relax her muscles. She doesn't need to kill the witness and flee the building. Rocket isn't going to report the failure to her father. Her father won't know. Will never know.

(if her father ever does find out she will be punished for so much more than being caught in the act of reading someone's datapad)

She turns to Rocket, determined to share this common ground. "Yes. I know all of them."

She knows the name of every single person who has ever cut her open. Many of them were family. She leaves that part out.

"Huh, lucky for you." Rocket shrugs. "If you wanna call it that. "

She glances down where Rocket's fingers are resting on the datapad. There's a large block of text with question marks scattered through-out but she recognizes one of the names; a scientist who was kidnapped by the Kree, forced to join their biological warfare endeavours.

Rocket catches her looking again.

Her eyes dart back down to the name she recognizes, a name that is frequently attached to multi-system epidemics though nothing has ever been lawfully proven by the Nova Empire (Thanos's sources, however, have proven it many times over. Her father admires the man's work. It's not the Kree Empire's goal but, _it's efficient population control)._

Rocket tenses when he sees where exactly she's looking, sees that she _knows._ He flicks the screen, quickly scrolling past the name. "It was before all that stuff with the Kree," he mutters.

That surprises her more than anything. Rocket has insinuated a number of times now that his life span is very short. But if he was being worked on before the Kree seriously restarted their biological warfare division...

She does the math, converting Thanos's calendar to Nova's. It's been nearly forty years.

Her eyes flick up and down Rocket, noting the white in his fur. White hair is a common sign of age in mammalian species. White markings are also common. There's no way to tell if it's age or not without knowing what he is.

"What Kree stuff?" Peter asks.

"Nothing. Shut up." Rocket turns the datapad off and slides out of his seat. He casts an angry glare towards her, daring her to say something.

She doesn't inform Peter (or Drax, who is now leaning towards Rocket at an absurd angle while Groot shoves both newly grown arms up Drax's nostrils) of what she's deduced about Rocket's past.

"Jeez, okay," Peter pouts. "You gotta work on your interpersonal skills. You don't have to be so grouchy _all_ the time."

Rocket glances at her again. She says nothing.

And just like that she's an accomplice.

Is it good that she says nothing? She knows the value of a secret. She's learned well under Thanos that keeping secrets can forge unlikely allies. This could be more common ground for her to share with Rocket.

Or is it bad? Is she putting everyone at risk by hiding that Rocket was worked on by a notorious war criminal? Even if it was before his crimes. It's highly unlikely but what if Rocket is carrying a deadly engineered disease?

The dilemma makes her head ache. It's purely psychological. Her enhancements would never allow her emotions to cause real physical pain. Still, why is it so hard to reconcile being _an awesome friend,_ as Peter puts it, and doing the right thing?

Oh, it's simple enough when a whole world is in danger but when it's only four people how is she supposed to choose? It would be so much easier if Rocket was a plague carrier.

Rocket jabs a finger into Peter's leg. "Do you have his water?"

"Yeah, I got it." Peter takes the bottle of water from his coat and holds it up. She is sure she would have forgotten it.

It's not really water. It's a nutrient rich solution Rocket has spent days refining. It has everything a young floral colossus needs to grow and thrive. Or so Rocket says. She has no idea what a young floral colossus needs. She would have given him plain water until he became sick.

"Do you have— don't hold him like that." Rocket reaches up and smacks Drax's arm. "Are you trying to kill him?"

"There is nothing wrong with how I'm holding him," Drax insists. He has Groot's pot tucked tightly against his chest with one arm. She's held him the same way. Drax shifts the pot to his other arm. "I am an expert at holding babies. I have many years of experience."

"Yeah, at holding humie babies. I heard those bounce when you drop 'em." Rocket climbs back onto the waiting room chair. He removes Groot's arms from Drax's nose then takes him from Drax. "Groot's fragile."

"I am groot." Groot wiggles and flails his arms. "I am groot."

"What?" Rocket's head tilts to the side. He squints as if he's trying to read something particularly complex. He says that it's not that he doesn't understand Groot anymore, it's simply that Groot is a baby with limited speaking skills. She takes his word for it. It still sounds like a perfectly enunciated _I am Groot_ to her every time Groot speaks.

"I am groot."

"I don't..." Rocket's chest heaves, covering up a barely there tremble. He shakes his head. "Say it again."

"I am groot." He wiggles and leans forward. " _I am groot! I am groot!"_

Rocket frowns. "You what— Gamora?"

"I am groot! I am groot!" Groot wiggles exuberantly and flings himself towards her. The only thing that stops him from knocking his pot over is Rocket's firm hold.

"Okay, okay." Rocket thrusts Groot into her arms. "Here. Since we can't trust _the expert_ to do it right."

"He wanted..." Gamora stares down at Groot. "You want me to hold you?"

"I am groot."

She doesn't know what he's saying but she can tell it's affirmative. Groot wants her to hold him. Fear slides down her spine in an icy wave. She doesn't know how to hold babies; never held one before Groot. If the way Drax was doing it was dangerous than she's probably doing an even worse job of holding Groot.

"How..." She looks to Rocket. It's likely he has no more experience with children than she has but somehow he always seems to know what to do, to have an answer.

Rocket moves her hands around the pot until they're encompassing nearly the entire thing. He pokes at the soil around Groot's base and nods, pleased with the...what makes this good dirt? How will she know if she's ruined it?

"Rocket?" Dr. Ikkip calls from the doors that lead to the operating room. This is the only surgery Dr. Ikkip refused to do in the apartment. If all goes well it will be the last surgery Rocket needs to stabilize his nervous system.

She's lucky that Thanos invested as much as he did into her cybernetics. By no means are Rocket's implants cheap products, but very few small independent systems are built to withstand massive energy surges. A few seconds longer and she too would be filling out history and consent forms.

(they ask for your consent before performing surgery)

"Yeah, okay." Rocket waves the doctor off. He flips open his satchel and takes out the tiny personal datapad they're keeping Groot's information on. He turns it on and reads through the messages again.

"The appointment is in twenty minutes but you're supposed to be there ten minutes early." He shoves the datapad at Peter. "So don't screw off and do dumb shit. Actually..." He points at one of the corpsmen that make up their security detail. "Make sure they get there on time."

"Dude, we can walk across the hospital on our own," Peter says, tucking the datapad into a jacket pocket.

Rocket ignores him, instead he locks eyes with Gamora. "Don't drop him."

"I will not." She feels like she's lying.

With that Rocket hops off the chair. He pauses to say a tense goodbye to Groot.

"I Am Groot." Groot wiggles at Rocket.

Rocket runs a quick hand over Groot's leaves then hurries away to join Dr. Ikkip. The two of them go through the door covered in signs that expressly forbid visitors. This time they listen. They stare at the door in silence and don't follow Rocket into the operating room.

Gamora hopes this will truly be the last surgery for Rocket. She knows what he's going through. How even if this is to help him it will still be an invasion of his body.

"So..." Peter says, "I know this really great restaurant not too far from here."

Drax makes a disgusted noise.

" _Peter."_ Gamora musters up all the reprimand she can into that one word.

"It was a _joke."_ Peter puts his hands up in defence. "Jeez, can't anyone take a joke?"

"It wasn't funny," Drax says. He points at Groot. "This baby has a better sense of humour than you."

"We should go. It's a long walk across the hospital," Gamora says before Peter can begin arguing with Drax. Again. It's becoming a habit between them.

She walks as carefully and as smoothly as she can. She won't hurt Groot by rushing.

The hospital hallways are more familiar. They're long and generally bland except for the occasional piece of artwork. They are still a far cry from the cold bare metal of Thanos's ships. And they do nothing to hide the stares and whispers that follow them.

Many are generic celebrity sightings: _look! It's them!_

But there are other whispers that follow them.

_They broke out of prison. He's a serial killer. He's a Ravager. She's a daughter of Thanos. I heard he crushed a reporter's skull. I heard she threatened to kill Nova Prime. I heard he slept with the whole parole board. Who in their right mind would leave a baby with them?_

She tries to ignore them, instead focusing on holding Groot as carefully as possible. Groot smiles up at her and flails his arms. She smiles back at the little person that doesn't know any better than to completely trust that she won't drop him; doesn't know enough to be scared of her.

She tightens her fingers around his pot. She has done many truly awful things, breaking Groot's naive trust in her will not be one of them. She is going to do everything in her power to make sure that never happens. She will not be her father.

"I am groot. I am groot. I am groot," Groot babbles away. He reaches out and strokes her thumb with his whole arm. He's so _small._ She can't—

"I aaaaam Groooot!" His arm wraps tight around her thumb. He gives another plaintive, _I am Groot,_ then bursts into tears.

"I didn't–" She hasn't done anything! She's holding him exactly the same way she was seconds ago!

She looks to Drax and Peter, wide-eyed and terrified that she's hurt Groot somehow, that she's destined to become Thanos not matter how hard she tries.

She shoves the pot out to Drax, jostling Groot in the process. He squeaks in fright. Stupid! Now she's hurt him again!

"I aaaaam Groooot! I aaaaam Groooot!"

Drax doesn't take him from her. He sticks his finger into the soil then leans in to sniff at Groot. She has no idea what sniffing him is supposed to accomplish. Drax should just take him before she does something else to him.

"I aaaaam Groooot!"

Peter takes the bottle of water out of his jacket. He holds it up and shakes it at Groot. "I'll give you the whole thing if you stop making that noise."

"I aaaaam Groooot! I aaaaam Groooot!"

"The soil is sufficiently wet," Drax says. He holds up the finger he poked into the soil. There's a light coating of damp soil covering his finger tip. "He's not hungry or thirsty."

"I aaaaam Groooot! I aaaaam Groooot!" Groot takes a deep breath. "I AAAAAM GROOOOOT!"

Everyone in close proximity winces. Why isn't anyone taking Groot from her? Clearly she's the problem here. He doesn't scream like this when Rocket or Drax holds him.

One of the corpsmen edges closer. "My niece screams like that when she needs her...diaper..." The corpsman stares at the Groot's pot. "...does he even poop?"

"I don't know, man. He's a tree. He poops air or whatever," Peter says, shoving the bottle back into his coat. Groot gives another ear piercing scream. Peter slaps his hands over his ears. "Oh my god, how have you not passed out yet? Don't you need to breathe?"

"I AAAAAM GROOOOOT!"

"Why are you crying!?" Drax shouts over the screaming, as if any of them will understand an answer.

Groot wraps his arm tighter around her thumb, cutting off the circulation. He flails his free arm. "I AAAAAM GROOOOOT!"

Peter utters what is probably a not so quiet _fuck_ which is barely audible over Groot's crying and screaming. He steps in front of Groot. Gamora holds the pot out to Peter. Finally. She should never have been trusted to hold Groot in the first place.

Peter doesn't take the pot.

Why won't anyone take the pot? Why is she still holding this child that is obviously terrified of her?

Maybe she should put him down on the floor if no one will take him? That has to be better than continuing to traumatize him.

Peter reaches down to his ever present music player and pushes a button. He takes the headphones from his neck and holds them so that Groot is between the earpieces.

Groot stares up at Peter. He takes another deep breath. They all cringe, expecting another shriek to blast out of him. He lets out a few quiet sobs and sniffles then slowly loosens the hold he has on her thumb.

They are eighteen minutes late to Groot's appointment.

When they finally get there they are told to take a seat in Dr. Lopparinia's waiting room and given a well-used datapad pre-loaded with a plethora of forms. She was not aware children required this much paperwork.

The corpsmen do a cursory search of the waiting room then all but one leave to wait in the hall. Gamora doubts that the other patients in the room will merit the presence of even one corpsman. From the shocked looks on the faces of the other patients in the waiting room it's likely their arrival was not announced before hand. They would have to have supremely terrible luck to have booked an appointment at the exact same time as an assassin.

They settle into the furthest corner, as far away from everyone as possible. This waiting room is even more foreign than the last. Everything is painted in bright cheerful colours. There are posters of happy children covering the walls.

There are _toys._

Children in the Nova Empire are expected to _be happy_ while waiting to see the doctor.

She was expected to contemplate her failures and staunch any wounds that might incapacitate her. And there were always her siblings to contend with too. Fending off attacks from them was to be expected. That didn't stop when she was injured.

Fear and anger slither to the surface of her mind, bringing a flood of memories. They're filled with tiny hands covered in blood and struggling to hold weapons too big for them. No one cries in these memories. Those children chosen to be her siblings who didn't learn to control their emotions never lasted long.

She pushes the memories away. She won't bring Thanos into this place for children. She won't let him near Groot, even in thought.

She sits down with Groot's pot on her lap. She doesn't let go. She doesn't know why Groot was crying in the hall earlier but she does know that as soon as she tries to wiggle her thumb free from his grip he starts to whimper again. She will do everything she can to make sure that this is the greatest hardship Groot will face as a baby.

"I hate these infernal things," Drax grumbles. He turns the datapad over in his hands several times then thrusts it at Gamora.

Gamora looks down at the datapad then to Groot. She can't fill out forms and hold Groot. They should have waited for Rocket to be out of surgery to do this.

"Here, I'll do it." Peter grabs the datapad before either of them can protest.

She glances at Drax. It probably wouldn't be so bad for Drax to hold Groot again? He's sitting down, there's minimal chance of a serious fall. And at least he doesn't make Groot scream and cry.

"I can do it," she says. "If Drax holds Groot."

"It's a _form,"_ Peter scoffs. "Despite what Drax keeps saying, I'm not an idiot."

Drax makes a noise that makes it very clear that he disagrees with that statement.

Peter opens the first form. "I'll have you know, I'm a pro at filling out government forms. I've been making fake IDs and manifests since I was a kid." He shoots a glance at the remaining corpsman. "Actually, that's a lie. I've never done that in my life. Wow, these forms are gonna be tough."

She stares at him, puzzled. They've all been granted pardons but it's not the first time he's mentioned some event or skill he's acquired from his time as a Ravager only to backtrack. She isn't sure if it's simply habit or if he feels...ashamed? Guilty?

Peter taps his foot and hums one of the songs from his music player. He's soon swaying in his seat and bobbing his head as he sings. Audibly. The other patients are staring.

Cultural differences aside, he does not look like a man who feels any great quantity of shame.

He stops singing only to ask them basic medical questions; _have you been vaccinated against the following common diseases? Do you emit any substances that are commonly toxic?_

They are called to the front shortly after Peter returns the datapad. She is hyper aware of the eyes that follow them. She isn't use to this type of staring. Her siblings would watch her, studying her for weakness. Others would stare, often with looks of dread as she cut them down. These people stare out of curiosity. They are not afraid. They are cautious in the way of strangers unsure of social niceties.

They're led to a small examination room by an assistant wearing a tunic that is brightly coloured and covered with pictures of happy animals common on Xandar.

"I'm just going to take a few measurements for Dr. Lopparinia," the assistant says. She quickly measures Groot's height, takes his temperature, and scoops a bit of Groot's soil into a vial of bright blue liquid and shakes it. All the while she smiles and asks Groot questions she couldn't possibly understand the answers to and compliments his abilities.

Groot is happy to babble at her and wave his arms. He's happy to be here: a medical facility. She holds his pot tighter. She will never let him fear medical attention. She will never let him fear asking for help when injured.

She will cut down anyone who would attempt to prove her wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally planned on doing one long chapter with four parts and then decided screw it, live dangerously, four short chapters with almost the same title.
> 
> fyi, I quietly changed some previous chapter titles because I could.


End file.
